Govt’s heritage hotel project draws a blank

It appears there are no takers for the special "Heritage Tourism Incentive Package – 2007" scheme announced by the government with much fanfare over a year ago in its bid to promote heritage tourism and attract domestic as well as foreign tourists in Gujarat.

Through an official resolution issued on March 5, 2007 by the State Industries department, the government had offered certain incentives to encourage private parties to convert heritage/historical properties like palaces, forts, havelis and guesthouses into heritage hotels.

Under the incentive package, the government had announced exemption for prospective developers, who may want to convert heritage properties built before 1950 into hotels. From the payment of electricity duty and luxury tax for five years, and also a total exemption from the payment of stamp duty on land purchase, they had been offered all.

To avail these incentives, the government had then put some conditions for private parties: a heritage hotel must have a minimum of 10 well-furnished rooms – 50 per cent of them with air-conditioned facility, and other facilities for prospective tourists such as parking plots, restaurants and dining rooms, communication and information gadgets like internet, fax machines, TV sets and security arrangements. The government had made it clear that no existing heritage hotels would be eligible to avail benefits under the incentive scheme.

Sources said on Friday that besides poor marketing strategy on the part of the State Tourism department, some of the stringent and not-so-pragmatic conditions made under the incentive package for private parties could be the main reason why the government miserably failed in its move to promote heritage tourism in Gujarat.

For instance, the sources said, one of the conditions made under the scheme was that the land and heritage property where a heritage tourism project is to come up should be free from any financial debt, including pending dues of the sales-tax, electricity bills and other local taxes. For this, private parties were asked to obtain no objection certificates from the authorities concerned before getting a project registered with the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL).

A senior Tourism department official admitted to The Indian Express, "It's true that such a policy should be hassle-free and more practical to attract prospective parties, especially the erstwhile princes, to set up their heritage hotel projects in the state. In fact, the government should announce incentives for such tourism projects, as has been done for industries.

When asked, this official said on condition of anonymity that the government proposed to rework the incentive package to promote heritage tourism in Gujarat. "There is a tremendous potential for heritage tourism in our state where there are about 200 princely palaces, most of them in Saurashtra and Kutch and central Gujarat, besides over 700 historical havelis and guest houses across the state," he said.