PANAJI
The State government on Wednesday inducted into the Goa Tourism Board four members with expertise in areas related to the sector.
Ernest Dias who has been in the industry with expertise in charters, tours and travel, Parag Rangnekar from the eco-tourism and wildlife field, Heritage and Culture expert Sanjiv Sardesai and Mark Anthony Mendes who has expertise in the cruise liners marketing field have been inducted in the all important board.
The Goa Tourism Board is the nucleus of all administrative and policy decision-making in the State tourism ministry tasked with strategizing and promoting Goa globally.
It came into being after the State government adopted the Goa Tourism Policy 2020 and notified it back in November 2020.
The State government has notified the recently approved ‘Goa Tourism Policy 2020’ which envisages a 25-year 'master plan' to develop and scale up tourism, quantitatively and qualitatively.
A 'tourism board' will be the administrative and policy decision-making nucleus under the plan responsible for strategizing the promotion of Goa globally.
The new Goa tourism policy also proposes an onslaught on narco-tourism, which a corrupt system has been grappling with since tourism formally began here by accident via the 'hippie' culture nearly half a century ago.
The new policy notified on Saturday is not the first masterplan for Goa's tourism sector which is the single largest primary contributor to the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
The process to formulate it was initiated over a decade ago during the tenure of the government of current Opposition Leader Digamber Kamat.
The task was assigned to Consultancy firm KPMG for a fee of approximately Rs 10-crore.
It comprises four modules which were submitted over a staggered time schedule spanning 5 years from 2015 to date.
It is however unclear if fundamental disruptions the industry is predicted to face post the pandemic are accounted for in the masterplan or policy.
