India’s Travel Budget: Small Marketing Spend, a Tax Win, Infrastructure Push
Photo Credit: A foreign tourist visiting Rishikesh in India's Uttarakhand. Unsplash / Gokul Gurung
Skift Take
The Union Budget’s impact depends largely on where you sit in the travel value chain. For inbound-focused businesses, there is little to celebrate amid muted promotion spends. For outbound players, however, tax relief offers a clear and immediate boost.
India's Union Budget on Sunday offered mixed signals for the travel industry: a token global tourism marketing allocation that remains far below historical levels, but meaningful tax relief for outbound travelers and a significant infrastructure push.
India spent just $3.5 million on global tourism marketing last fiscal year, official documents show — far more than the initial budget of $361,000, but still small for a country of India's size.
The government has repeated the pattern for the current year, which ends March 31. For 2025–26, it has earmarked INR 30.7 million ($335,000) for global tourism promotion, with projected spending rising to INR 434.8 million ($4.7 million) by March 31.
For 2026-2027, the Union Budget fixes the global tourism promotion budget at INR 35 million ($381,702).
There is no allocation for domestic tourism promotion.
"While the Indian inbound industry, was expecting some help from the government to
