A big surge in Indian and East European tourists to Goa marked the state's tourism season this year with the tourism industry expressing satisfaction with the overall tourism business.
“It could have been better," said Ralphe de Sousa, president of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa. "But it could also have been worse. Domestic tourists and East Europeans increased significantly to make up for the decrease in British and Scandinavian tourists to Goa," De Souza said.
John Lobo, running the Goodluck beach cafe at Baga beach for the last 30 years said the season was "okay" but "not as good as expected." Lobo said there was a big decline in foreign tourists and the only reason they managed to pull through was because of domestic tourists. Lobo and most shacks hope to do business till May end.
Ralphe de Souza said that compared to last year, room occupancies for the financial year 2009-10 dropped between 8-10 % and revenues for the same period dropped by 15%.
Surprisingly, the directorate of tourism' s provisional figures contradicted TTAG claims to show that 1.32 lakh more tourists visited Goa this year than last year's 23.71 lakh tourists.
The tourism directorate's figures show that 25,03,703 domestic and foreign tourists visited Goa from January till December 2009. While that is an improvement over the calendar year 2008 when only 23,71,539 tourists visited Goa, it is less then the number of tourists that visited Goa in 2007. That was the year when Goa got the highest number of tourists in recent years; a record 25,97,443 visitors.
The provisional figures for 2009 show that domestic tourists far outnumber foreign tourists. While Goa got 21,27,063 domestic tourists in 2009, there were only 3,76,640 foreign tourists last year. That means foreign tourists comprised only 15% of the tourist arrivals in Goa last year.
Arrivals in the first three months of 2010 have also been good. Goa got 6,67,244 tourists from January till March 2010, which is slightly over a quarter of the total annual arrivals. But the arrivals are dipping; in January there were about 2.5 lakh arrivals, in February there were 1.8 lakh and in March there were 2.2 lakh. Foreign arrivals have declined steadily in the last three months; January 62,000, February 56,000 and March only 48,000.
De Sousa said British arrivals declined by 18% due to the recession and the new harsh visa rules. The number of Scandinavians - Swedish and Finnish - also dropped but German and Swiss tourists remained stable. Arrivals from East Europe - Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Armenia and Belarus - increased significantly. For the first time, Goa also got a direct flight from Tajikistan.
But De Souza is not only gloating over Indian arrivals this season, he foresees a great promise from the domestic market in the future. One change De Souza notes is that young and highly paid Indian executives who work round the clock in high pressure jobs, fly down to Goa on long weekends to chill out and unwind. "This is a new trend that started last year but really took off this year. Goa saw many conferences this year. Unlike other countries hit by recession, the Indian economy grew and Goa saw a spurt in the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) tourism. As a wedding destination, Goa is growing year after year."
With the arrival of the monsoons, De Sousa expects "plenty of honeymooners and young couples" to flood Goa to take advantage of the rebates. "Goa is becoming a round-the-year destination except for a brief lull in May due to school examinations," De Souza said.
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