It’s been over three decades, perhaps more, that owners ofshacks on Goa’s beaches have been the biggest draws for tourists. In theabsence of infrastructure, an erratic nightlife barring a couple of strips,very few twenty four hour restaurants, the shacks continue to be the touchpoints of food, music and the sea.
Yet, the management of shacks and their owners continue tobe ad hoc with the shack owners left to their own devices, uncertain about theimmediate and the future. They work in a vacuum where no policy is THE policy.The shack policy as a subset of the greater tourism policy needs to be definedwith a five year and a ten year vision.
Any modifications or additions need to be addressed in Marchor April so that there is time to put it in place by September before a seasoncommences.
In an annual merry go round, shack owners and the governmentbattle it out on various issues of ad hoc policy till way after the firstcharters arrive.
Russian or British tourists who arrive in Goa, especiallythese days, don’t come to Goa just to lounge in the sanitised environments offive star or other upmarket resorts. The first Russian charter has arrived andnot a shack is open. The seasonal restaurants are not yet open, the watersports activities aren’t in full swing and the bands are still struggling to fillup empty slots. The argument that barring the shack owners, who are uncertainbut they too look at a November 15 start to their business, the others are fine, doesn’t cut ice. A pre- announced policy helps travel agents, touroperators, restaurant owners make tangible business projections and plan.
There is a very serious divide between simple shack ownersand the rest of the tourism industry including the government. Rather thanincluding them as a part of the solution, they are merely branded as part ofthe problem. Shacks are not a security hazard and points of drug trade,prostitution et al in isolation. If that was the case then these activitieswould be minimal in the seven months that there aren’t shacks in Goa.
On the contrary, they heighten. Then there are evergreen notso simple shacks that function throughout the year like Curlies in Anjuna.Shack owners are legitimate and perhaps the most critical stakeholders of Goa’stourism. Don’t kill them.
