Fourteen out of 16 perennially loss making hotels owned by state-run India Tourism Development Corp. (ITDC) will be sold off and the process to privatise them has already started. The finance ministry is taking forward the disinvestment plan to totally offload government’s stakes in all the ITDC-run hotels except the Ashoka and Samrat hotels in the national capital. The government decided to privatize the hotels to improve the financial health of ITDC, a public sector undertaking that currently runs 16 hotels in Delhi, Patna, Jammu, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Puri, Bhopal, Bharatpur, Jaipur, Guwahati, Mysore, Puducherry and Itanagar.

India’s share in the global tourists flow is around 0.68% and government plans to raise it to 1% by 2020 and 2% by 2025. Union tourism and culture minister Sharma said the government is considering setting up a National Tourism University as part of a series of measures to boost the tourism sector.

The India Tourism Development Corporation Limited (ITDC) is an Hospitality, retail and Education company owned by Government of India, under Ministry of Tourism. Established in 1966, it owns over 17 properties under the Ashok Group of Hotels brand, across India.