It says something that the GTDC initiative to introduce helicopter joy rides in collaboration with Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd (PHLL) got started and landed Tuesday at the Aguada helipad with police security. The panchayat of Candolim was not in favour of the activity on their plateau and neither were a vocal section of the residents, including the former Congress legislator from the area Agnelo Fernandes, and the sitting ruling party legislator from the neighboring assembly segment, Michael Lobo. Their objection is that the tours would create noise pollution, disturb the ecology and tranquility of the plateau, and impede the atmosphere of the area--- basically a sea side village that supports dozens of hotels and guesthouses in a largely home grown industry.
For its part, the GTDC has argued that the landing area is well away from the heritage fort, that the 15 minute joy rides running from 10 am to 4 pm, on a two bladed single engine Bell-206 helicopter has a low noise signature, would fly 500 ft above the ground and take 40 seconds for take-off and landing, with down draft not likely to damage flora and fauna. Furthermore the activity is on 10,000 sq mts of GTDC property and it claims it does not need panchayat permissions to conduct the rides. In reply, the village opponents say the government agencies involved are not coming clean on the full plan of operation, and they have raised questions about parking and fueling.
In South Goa, apprehensions about the GTDC project to introduce hot air balloons have also created a mild stir in the media. Plans to introduce sea planes and marinas have met with opposition from the Goenchea Ramponkarancho Ekvott. All these were part of a larger on going plan to introduce new components into the tourism sector --- including Segway tours, hop-on-hop-off buses, luxury cruise services, hovercrafts, a cable ropeway from the Panaji end of the Mandovi to the Reis Magos area, an oceanarium in the Miramar area.
Other ambitious plans unveiled last year, after it took on board a consultant to prepare a tourism policy and 20- year plan, were proposals for a floating water park, bungee jumping/giant swing, and a 5D entertainment box. In addition, it announced plans to introduce kayaking, scuba diving, yoga tours, horse trails and bicycle tours.
Since then, the plans for a golf course, that the tourism industry says is much needed to attract high end tourists, have run into legal hurdles. Reports that the GTDC plan to convert with PPP participation, eight of its properties into five star and three star hotels --- have found few takers. The opposition to projects is being presented as a reason for the lack of interest from corporates to its tenders. That may be one all-too-easy explanation. There could be others.
Governments have their own priorities --- that of showing results, especially before an election. Consultants have their own approach, but perhaps a historical look at the way tourism has developed in Goa, would be educative. Quite literally, it developed and grew completely without any government promotion and intervention, from the bottom up. The hippies of the 1960s made Goa their destination of sorts, and the local coastal populations catered to them. The hotels came later.
Six decades later, tourism in Goa hardly needs a “tourism development corporation” to create new tourism products. Government bodies as institutions are ill-equipped to run businesses. Welfare, public services and administration is their ideal domain. In the long slew of projects the GTDC and tourism department have listed, even as recently as August 2015, as their intention to “introduce” for development, are areas like scuba diving, kayaking, yoga tours and bungee jumping. All activities that private sector players are already running with varied success in Goa’s tourism sector. One private party introduced and wound up the bungee jumping unit in Anjuna several years back. The private sector has been quick to spot opportunity in the tourism landscape of Goa, some of it good, some of it problematic.
Yoga festivals and retreats are running in several places with great success. Local entrepreneurs are running water parks, wedding tours, kayaking, birding, crocodile spotting and several other activities that the government sector is now keen to "introduce". So are the night markets and several homegrown ventures. Experience has demonstrated that organically grown ventures, which spring from local entrepreneurship, find easier acceptance within the local economy. The trend of using government corporations as a vehicle for outstation players to parachute into the economy, has expectedly run into trouble.
Historically, villages are spaces that residents are protective and possessive and proud and caring about. Past governments have lived with that. Village spaces are shared with visitors, but on their terms. That has been the Goa story for a long while. If the space-sharing has a downside, there is usually a tradeoff, between degradation and local earnings. Villages will not take too kindly to the trade-off being their local degradation and non-local earnings.
Over six decades, villages have traded in traditional farming and fishing for the tourism economy. But introducing tourism products that are run by non-local players and worse still, have the potential to threaten existing homegrown tourism services, are not likely to go down well.
