ISLAMABAD ( WNAM REPORT ): Mian Akram Farid, Chairman of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Committee on Hotel Industry and Tourism, Executive Member, and former Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Hotels Association and former President ICCI while presiding over an important meeting of the hotel industry at the FPCCI Central Office in Islamabad, has strongly urged the Government of Pakistan to take immediate and revolutionary steps in the Federal Budget 2026-27 to save the country’s sinking hotel and tourism industry.
He stated that Pakistan’s hotel and restaurant sector is currently passing through the most difficult period in the country’s history, where running a business is becoming impossible day by day. Highlighting the crisis faced by the industry, he said that the current commercial rates of electricity and gas have broken the backbone of the hotel industry because utility bills have now far exceeded average profits, pushing several small and medium-sized hotels to the brink of closure.
Mian Akram Farid expressed deep regret that despite being the highest tax-paying sector, the hospitality industry is completely deprived of basic facilities and government patronage. He pointed out the burdens of Super Tax, heavy GST and services taxes levied at federal and provincial levels, and the bed tax imposed in the federal capital. Furthermore, he highlighted illegally established guest houses that are not only damaging the tax-paying hotel industry but are also causing heavy losses to the government through tax evasion.
He mentioned that although the government had announced giving “industrial status” to the hotel industry a long time ago, practically, this sector has not been provided any facility of cheap electricity, gas, or subsidized loans like the manufacturing industry to this day, which is an outright injustice to this sector. Additionally, if machinery and equipment are imported for hotel construction and renovation, extreme difficulties are faced due to import and other tax issues.
He strongly urged the government, stating that due to global and domestic economic conditions, tourists have already restricted their travel, because of which Pakistan’s hotel industry is facing the biggest crisis in its history.
Farid and the meeting participants presented the following demands to the government:
Industrial Tariffs: The hotel industry must be immediately removed from the clutches of commercial tariffs and provided with industrial electricity and gas rates to control uncontrollable operational costs.
Tax Reduction: The General Sales Tax (GST) levied on hotel and tourism services should be uniformly reduced across the country to a single digit to genuinely promote domestic and international tourism.
Green Energy Transition: To shift hotels to alternative energy, he demanded the complete abolition of import duty on solar systems and the introduction of easy-term solar financing schemes through the State Bank of Pakistan.
Tax Holidays: He emphasized the need to announce special tax holidays and easy micro-financing for the hotel industry located in key and sensitive tourist hubs such as Murree, Swat, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Kashmir.
Mian Akram Farid added that Pakistan’s hospitality industry generates billions of rupees in revenue for the national economy and is the largest source of employment for hundreds of thousands of youth. However, if the government does not provide relief to this sector in the Budget 2026-27, this industry will become completely paralyzed.
