Vijayawada: Hotels seek MSME status to keep pot boiling

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh Hotels Association demanded the State government grant Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) status to hotels and extend support in the form of incentives to sustain them and recover from the losses suffered due to the Covid pandemic in the State.

The hotel association executive body members held a conference on Wednesday and discussed the problems being faced by the industry in the State.

Later, addressing the media persons, association president M Balakrishna Reddy said hotels and restaurants are in severe crises in Andhra Pradesh due to the impact of Covid. He said 10 to 20 restaurants and hotels are being closed down every month in the State due to lack of business. The association is demanding the government to grand MSME status to hotels because they are providing livelihood to a large number of workers and promoting tourism industry.

The government considers hotels as commercial and collecting heavy taxes and charges from them, he added.

Hotels will get some incentives, if industry status is granted them. He said the investors can get permissions very quickly for setting up hotels, if MSME status is granted to the hotels in the State.

He felt there is a lot of scope to promote temple tourism and develop the historical Buddhist sites to promote tourism in the State. He said if the tourism industry is developed hotels can also be developed. He demanded that the government should give waiver on taxes for two years to the hotels so that the hotels can sustain and recover from the losses suffered during the Covid pandemic.

Referring to different types of GST slabs for the hotels, he pointed out that the customers are getting confused with the different slabs.

Earlier, the hotels association elected a new executive body at the State office. M Balakrishna Reddy was elected the new president. Other leaders Muralidhar Reddy, Subbaraju, Venu, Sanjay attended the press meet.