Sectors · Technology and services
Hospitality and tourism
Hotels, resorts, restaurant groups and travel businesses sit across several licensing regimes at once (excise, food safety, fire and local body permissions), with labour regulation and consumer protection over the top.
Reviewed
What this covers
- Licensing and excise regulatory compliance
- Franchise and hotel management agreement disputes
- Employment and labour law advisory
- Consumer protection and guest liability matters
- Land and property disputes for hospitality assets
- FSSAI and food safety compliance
- Insurance claims and force majeure disputes
- Insolvency and restructuring for hospitality enterprises
- Goods and services tax rates and input tax credit for hotels and restaurants
The notes behind these capabilities
A Bengaluru hotel with a restaurant and a bar answers to six regimes: food safety, excise, the city corporation's trade licence, the police licence for a place of public entertainment, fire law and music copyright. Of the six, only the food safety regime says in terms what a lapse does: if no renewal application is made before the expiry date, the Licensing and Registration Regulations, 2011 under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 (as notified in 2011) require, on their words, the operator to stop all business activity at the premises, without any order of suspension. The Karnataka Fire Force Act, 1964 carries no operating licence at all.
From 22 September 2025, a hotel room with a value of supply of up to INR 7,500 per unit per day is taxed under goods and services tax (GST) at 5 per cent, on condition that the hotel takes no input tax credit on the goods and services used to supply it, and the hotel cannot choose a higher rate instead. Whether the restaurant in the same building charges 5 or 18 per cent turns on a separate test, the specified premises rule in force since 1 April 2025, whose next declaration window runs from 1 January to 31 March 2027.
Reference
Regulators in this sector
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Practice areas that apply
- Boardroom and corporate
- Transaction advisory
- Capital markets
- Contracts and procurement
- IP and licensing
- Civil disputes
- PMLA
- Technology, data and product
- Employment
- Taxation and fiscal
- White-collar and cyber defence
- AI, data and emerging technology
- Cyber crime
- Public law and public interest litigation
- Technology disputes
- Money recovery
- Foreign exchange (FEMA)
- Prevention of sexual harassment (POSH)
- Employee's Compensation
- GST disputes
Advocates in this sector
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