The government will now have a draft master plan for tourism laid out during the April 2016 Assembly budget session. This plan was entrusted to KPMG, global professional service company. In April, we will finally see the fruits of Rs 10 crore worth of labour, as the plan will aim to set in motion a tourism plan for the next two to three decades.
Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar also announced the fact that the Centre had earmarked Rs 550 crore to upgrade infrastructure and also that this year around eight million tourists were targeted, as opposed to the 6.8 million of last year, when most operators claimed that it was a bad year for tourism in Goa. The latter announcement does certainly hold some hope for the businessmen who depend on tourism, but it remains to be seen whether these numbers will actually be realised.
The dependence on numbers though, is certainly a questionable formula. There was a time when Goa had an abundance of foreign bagpackers that made the state their hub, but these numbers dwindled from the mid-2000s onwards. Now, we see a mix of the five star crowd, coupled with the jeeps and tempos filled with tourists from the interiors of the country, the Indian version of camper vans. Only these camper vans differ where the daily ablutions cannot be conducted within, but outside by the side of the road or at a public toilet.
Every tourist destination has a basic outlook, they cater to a specific audience. Goa differs here, as the dependence on numbers will attest to. There is an urgent need to demarcate the demographic that the State wants to attract. Family tourism cannot co-exist with ‘camper van’ tourism, neither can it fit in with the crowd who wish to come here for the sights they think they will see based on a few movies. No self-respecting golfer or five star tourist would want to travel through Goa seeing garbage piled up on the side or a few men bathing under a tap.
Goa has a basic infrastructure, it just needs to upgrade and tweak it. Does this warrant hiring a company, no matter their credentials, and paying them crores of rupees to come up with a master plan that may be brilliant but not be in tune with the ground realities? In the past we’ve had an excellent plan for Panaji that did not see the light of day because it didn’t take into account the problems being faced by anyone who wishes to go in an avant-garde direction.
There will be opposition. It will come from various quarters or from the usual suspects. The government doesn’t always take this into consideration, nor does it work on an awareness campaign so that they can nip these problems in the bud. The corruption and rot that exists today has only served to sensitise the average Goan. He or she will look at anything coming out of the government stable as a plan with a hidden agenda. This master plan will certainly face up to similar obstacles.
Goa needs to define who it wants to come and visit the state. This cannot be a free for all. It also needs to realise that a master plan is just that, a plan. Implementing it is another thing altogether.
