Licence Delay: Slow death for Homestays

KOCHI: Even as tourists are taking to homestays in a big way, preferring to enjoy the beauty of Kochi from the comforts of a home rather than the luxuries of a star hotel, delays in licensing procedures are forcing entrepreneurs to shut shop.
According to Kerala State Homestay and Tourism Association (Kerala HATS), a consortium of homestay providers and tourism promoters, 50 per cent of homestay entrepreneurs in the state’s commercial hub are now abandoning the business owing to the delay in getting the licences renewed.
“The licence for running homestays has to be renewed every two years. The prolonged delay, often up to six months, in renewing the licence has prompted many entrepreneurs to withdraw from running homestays,” said M P Sivadathan, Kerala HATS director.
He pointed out that a high number of homestays were unauthorised.

“As per the statistics available with Kerala HATS, the number of authorised and classified homestays in Kochi is just 65 while the number of unauthorised ones runs to more than 300. Though the renewal is just 50 per cent, the number of homestays remains constant as new entrepreneurs come in,” he said.
Besides, the government has not accepted the long-pending demands of entrepreneurs to exclude homestays from 7A tariff (commercial power connection) and 0.5 per cent luxury tax.
However, the District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC) secretary T N Jayashankar said that there were justifiable reasons for the delay in renewing licences. “It’s a fact that there is a delay. But there have been no incidents of an entrepreneur withdrawing from business just because of this. Ernakulam DTPC forwarded 40 renewal applications to Thiruvananthapuram this year,” he said.
“Licence renewal is a long process as it is issued after inspection by various agencies. Such inspections cannot be compromised as any relaxation in the inspection procedure may adversely affect quality. However, it would be better if the government constitutes a committee to expedite the renewal process,” Jayasankar said.