India Sets Higher Taxes for Air Travel and Hotel Bookings – Should you worry?

Here’s a piece of news that should not worry us too much! Reuters has just posted a short story about India raising service taxes for air travel. Also, all hotels with fees over 1,000 rupees and venues with air conditioning that serve alcoholic beverages will be taxed. Yes, more prices going up when the world is still in economic turmoil and all prices seem to go higher by the day.

But how much should you really worry about the new taxes. Well, if you convert rupees to euros, you realize the new tax will add 4 euros to your economy ticket. If you want to travel in the business or first classes, well, downgrade to economy if you want to save money!

A hotel room over 1000 rupees means anything above 15 euros per night. Which includes all decent stay, according to this list of hotels in New Delhi. As taxes are usually percentages, I imagine an amount under an euro will be added to your fee.

Worst case scenario? About 100 euros (or about 140 US dollar) added to a two to three week trip to India. Is it an increase? You bet ya! Do we like it? No way! Is it enough to make us not want to travel to India? Of course not!

What’s your say in this matter?