The Hotel Association of India has reaffirmed its support for Chhattisgarh at Tourism Investor Connect 2025, aligning national hospitality priorities with state-level reforms to accelerate tourism and hotel sector growth.
The Hotel Association of India (HAI), the apex body of India’s hospitality sector, has reaffirmed its support for tourism-led development in Chhattisgarh during the Chhattisgarh Tourism Investor Connect 2025. At the event, the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Shri Vishnu Deo Sai, highlighted the State’s unexplored beauty, vibrant culture, diverse tourism offerings and growing investment opportunities, positioning Chhattisgarh as a high-potential destination for hospitality and tourism stakeholders.
The HAI delegation was represented by Secretary General, Mr M. P. Bezbaruah, and Deputy Secretary General, Ms Charulata Sukhija, who held a constructive meeting with the Chairman of the Chhattisgarh Tourism Board and the Secretary of Tourism. The discussions focused on deepening industry–government partnership, enabling policy support for hotel and tourism investments, and aligning the State’s tourism ambition with national hospitality sector priorities.
Aligning Chhattisgarh’s tourism ambitions with national hospitality priorities
At the Investor Connect platform, HAI commended the State’s Policy 2024–2030 for the hotel sector, which seeks to catalyse private investment and upgrade tourism infrastructure across Chhattisgarh. Building on this, the Association outlined its broader vision and key national-level initiatives for the hospitality sector, emphasising the need for an enabling environment that recognises tourism as a strategic economic driver.
Among its national priorities, HAI reiterated the importance of GST rationalisation for hotels to improve India’s competitiveness as a destination, and the need to grant infrastructure status to the hospitality sector at the central level. Both measures, the Association underlined, are critical to lowering the cost of capital, attracting long-term investment and accelerating the development of quality rooms, resorts and tourism facilities across emerging states such as Chhattisgarh.
State-level reforms to unlock hotel and tourism growth
At the State level, HAI stressed that a robust, supportive policy framework is essential to scale up the tourism and hospitality ecosystem. Recommended focus areas include:
• Industry benefits for hotels: Extending industry status and associated incentives to hotels to place them at par with other key sectors.
• Rationalised utility tariffs and property tax rates: Competitive energy and property taxation to improve operating viability and encourage new builds and brownfield expansions.
• Easier financing: Improved access to credit for hospitality projects, particularly in emerging and secondary destinations where tourism potential is high but financing remains constrained.
• Ease of doing business: Streamlined approvals, single-window clearances and reduced compliance burden to shorten project timelines and reduce cost overruns.
HAI also underscored the role of skilling and human capital development in sustaining long-term sector growth. Strengthening hospitality-specific training, building local talent pipelines, and partnering with educational institutions and industry will be crucial in ensuring that new and existing properties in Chhattisgarh can deliver consistently high service standards.
Public–private partnerships at the core of tourism-led development
The Association reiterated its long-standing advocacy for strong public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a foundation for successful tourism strategies. Regular engagement between government and industry, joint identification of priority projects, and collaboration on destination development were highlighted as key enablers for Chhattisgarh to fully realise its tourism potential.
Through its dialogue at the Chhattisgarh Tourism Investor Connect 2025, HAI expressed its commitment to exploring opportunities to collaborate with the Chhattisgarh government to unlock the State’s tourism potential. The Association signalled its readiness to provide policy inputs, sectoral expertise, and industry perspectives to support the State’s efforts to attract investment, develop new circuits, and position Chhattisgarh more strongly on the tourism map of India.
Chhattisgarh’s investment momentum and tourism potential
Chhattisgarh has demonstrated a strong growth outlook, with investment proposals exceeding ₹6,321 crore in industry and ₹505 crore in tourism. These figures underline the State’s dual positioning as an emerging industrial hub and an increasingly compelling tourism destination.
