The tourism industry in Goa is facing constant falls for a couple of years. although it was blamed on the recession and other factors the truth is that the wrong decisions and lack of capacity to implement the right environment and infrastructure had lead to the fall of the tourism industry in Goa and it is the open fact.
The Calangute MLA Michael Lobo had recently put the final nail in the coffin stating that the downfall of Goa’s tourism industry has come due to a lot of wrong decisions made in the past.
Goa once attracting high-quality tourists into the state that led to an increase in the revenue despite low turnout but now even with the high turnouts the quality has gone down, stated Lobo.
“It’s true that Goa gets crowded with tourists. But, this is not the premium crowd that the state used to attract in the past. We have to see that this crowd comes back. If you see the Maldives, they have very few tourists, but their turnover is high.”
Lobo also co-owns couple of resort properties in North Goa feels that pinch himself as the business had been affected due to low-grade tourists and now the Covid crises.
“When we opened around 14 years ago, our room rate was around Rs 8,000. Now it’s between Rs 4,000-5,000. We don’t want quantity, we want quality,” said Lobo adding that The crowds who drive down are not tourists – they come for one day, cook in the fields, eat and defecate in the open, eve tease and stare at women on the beaches.
“Foreign quality tourists have opted out of Goa because of these ‘kuch bhi chalta hai’ crowd,” he said.
According to the Calangute MLA, this has happened purely due to the wrong decisions and lack of planning by the tourism ministers and the Department of Tourism in the past nine years.
“We will have to work to make Goa a quality destination again. Whatever needs to be done, we will have to work collectively – the industry and the government have to work together,” Lobo said.
Lobo feels that there is a need for retrospection before we make more mistakes ans there is something surely wrong and that is why despite having natural beauty and serene beaches we still don’t get quality tourists.
“In Goa, we have natural beauty; we have the sea, lakes, rivers, Dudhsagar… everything is there. But something is wrong somewhere. We have to see where we’ve gone wrong and find a solution for that,” he said.
