Another tourism season is upon us and like every year, the season does not look bright especially from a charter tour operator's point of view.
With the squabble over landing and berthing slots for charter flights set to get more intense this year and the Navy which controls air traffic at the Dabolim airport set to give preference to domestic flights, Goa stands to lose a big chunk of the foreign tourists to these procedures.
For those uninitiated, several charter companies have been denied charter slots especially at the preferred hours with the Navy and the AAI informing tour operators that the slots were handed out to domestic carriers leaving charter operators in the lurch. This has led to charter companies threatening to take their tourists elsewhere and not fly to Goa leaving tourism stakeholders worried and urging the Chief Minister's intervention.
Charter companies, it must be remembered, bring in the bulk of foreign tourists to Goa. It's a no brainer that the foreign tourists are the high spending tourists, the kind that Goa needs more of.
No doubt, one can argue that charters bring in the lower spending of the foreign tourists as compared to independent travellers. But, for Goa, which is facing a problem of being too cheap and attracting the wrong kind of tourists, many of whom do not even stay in hotels and spend as little as possible, charter tourists will definitely do. It makes a state government intervention all the matter all the more necessary.
Present Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has in the past, especially when he was Union Defence Minister come to the aid of charter tour operators bringing about some much needed reform in India's charter policy helping the Goa industry to a large extent.
The latest rules, however tend to undo all that. Goa, it must be remembered faces competition from several other winter tourism destinations, which can claim to be cheaper and also more flexible. While Parrikar may well use this example to buttress his case for a second airport at Mopa, with the charter season barely weeks away from starting, this isn't a time for ‘I told you so' but rather one to find solutions for the present and immediate future.
With tourism being the mainstays of the Goan economy, especially since the earnings are spread across the strata of people involved in the industry, it would be folly for the government to think that issues like these can sort themselves out. The sooner an intervention comes, the better.
With the squabble over landing and berthing slots for charter flights set to get more intense this year and the Navy which controls air traffic at the Dabolim airport set to give preference to domestic flights, Goa stands to lose a big chunk of the foreign tourists to these procedures.
For those uninitiated, several charter companies have been denied charter slots especially at the preferred hours with the Navy and the AAI informing tour operators that the slots were handed out to domestic carriers leaving charter operators in the lurch. This has led to charter companies threatening to take their tourists elsewhere and not fly to Goa leaving tourism stakeholders worried and urging the Chief Minister's intervention.
Charter companies, it must be remembered, bring in the bulk of foreign tourists to Goa. It's a no brainer that the foreign tourists are the high spending tourists, the kind that Goa needs more of.
No doubt, one can argue that charters bring in the lower spending of the foreign tourists as compared to independent travellers. But, for Goa, which is facing a problem of being too cheap and attracting the wrong kind of tourists, many of whom do not even stay in hotels and spend as little as possible, charter tourists will definitely do. It makes a state government intervention all the matter all the more necessary.
Present Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has in the past, especially when he was Union Defence Minister come to the aid of charter tour operators bringing about some much needed reform in India's charter policy helping the Goa industry to a large extent.
The latest rules, however tend to undo all that. Goa, it must be remembered faces competition from several other winter tourism destinations, which can claim to be cheaper and also more flexible. While Parrikar may well use this example to buttress his case for a second airport at Mopa, with the charter season barely weeks away from starting, this isn't a time for ‘I told you so' but rather one to find solutions for the present and immediate future.
With tourism being the mainstays of the Goan economy, especially since the earnings are spread across the strata of people involved in the industry, it would be folly for the government to think that issues like these can sort themselves out. The sooner an intervention comes, the better.
