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Rajesh Mishra

The youngest president of the Federation, Rajesh Mishra talks to Hotelier India about how the FHRAI can improve the workings of the hotel industry.

What is your current role in the FHRAI?
I am the vice president for the Eastern region in India.

What were the reforms you brought about during your tenure?
I released a book called ‘Vision of Indian tourism’, a ready reckoner for central and state tourism policy written by Professor Pujari and Professor Subbarao. In that it covers the central govt tourism policies released during AB Vajpayee’s term.

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It helps one to know what is happening in which state. It explored the taxation structure regarding tourism in all states covering excise, VAT, etc. This research work was done during my tenure. I sought a uniform code of taxation for the hotels and restaurants spread all over the country.

Also in the FHRAI Institute of Hospitality Management in Greater Noida, there was a lot of administrational overhauling and it was completely revamped, even the curriculum was changed according to the EHL (Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne) and issuance of degrees according to the Swiss institute was stopped.

We terminated the agreement and Indianised the arrangement as per the Indian scenario, and also reduced the fee structure. As far as the secretariat is concerned, we had a special Rural Bharat program for students who are pursuing a smaller course.

What was the best part of your tenure?
The best part was when we had collaborated with French hoteliers who wanted to conduct an exchange program with our institute. And the second time was when we were given the status of the third-largest association in the world.

What were the challenges you faced and how did you overcome those?
The biggest challenge is dealing with a very slow government. In my opinion, people from the trade should be inducted into the industry because tourism is a big area.

So unless you have a board like the one that Singapore has, we cannot prosper. We are also constantly caught between the State and Central governments, tourism will suffer at this rate if this is not fixed.

What kind of impact do you think the Commonwealth Games will have on the hotel industry? Do you think the industry will be able to successfully welcome the tourist inflow?
Such events should be organised more often, it puts pressure on our industry to perform, the last large event we had of this size was in 1982 when we hosted the Asiad Games.

Now years later, we are hosting the CWG and it’s a good thing for the industry. They will manage to accommodate all the tourists at the last moment and even if there is some delay, they will manage to overcome it. Infrastructure needs to improve on a large scale and the CWG will highlight this need glaringly.