PANAJI: It's that part of the season when hoteliers make a killing in the State, but that's not to be in present scenario. What baffles the tourism stakeholders is the poor occupancy rate in hotels across the State this season -- from Christmas to New Year's Eve.
A number of hotels are reportedly unable to sell their entire room inventory for the last week of December despite putting in their best. Bhushan Bordekar, general manager, Windsor Bay in Calangute said, "From December 27 to December 29, not a single room is booked in any of our three properties."
The hoteliers are unable to understand the exact cause behind this trend. Some of them lamented that neither Sunburn nor Supersonic is happening in Goa. Till two years ago, both these electronic-dance-music festivals (EDMs) used to bring tourists in hordes to the state.
This year another EDM - Timeout - is expected to happen in Vagator in the last week of December. But, going by the occupancy rate of hotels, it does not look like that they are expecting good business due to this EDM.
Hoteliers, however, said that there could be other reasons contributing to low occupancy rates apart from absence of Sunburn and Supersonic. But, they are not sure what exactly those reasons are.
George Thomas, Front Office Manager, Ocean Palms in Calangute, said, "From December 23 onwards, we are having an occupancy of just 70% in our hotel, which should have been 100% by now. We are actually sold out till Dec 22, but the occupancy drops after that in the last week of the month. We are having an occupancy of 70% even on New Year's Eve."
In earlier years, airfares used to be very high on Goa route, which would lead to booking cancellations. However, this year, airfares look very reasonable. For example, if you want to fly from Delhi to Goa on Dec 23 for Christmas weekend, there are several flying options available for a ticket price of Rs 10,000 - 11,000 per passenger.
An air-ticket can be bought to fly from Mumbai to Goa on December 23 for Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000. Neither is flying out of Goa post vacation unreasonably expensive. For example, on Dec 26 (after Christmas weeke nd), tourists can travel from Goa to Delhi at around Rs 8,000 - 10,000. Similarly, flying to Goa and back for New Year weekend is also a lot more affordable than it was in earlier years.
Despite this, hotels are not able to sell 100% room inventory either on Christmas or New Year's Eve or in the week in between. Polly D' Cruz, general manager, The Golden Crown Hotel & Spa in Colva, said, "Our property is 60-75% occupied between Christmas and New Year's Eve. We are 50% occupied even right now (Dec 19). Our sales team is speaking to offline agents to get group of tourists. We are finding it so difficult to attract tourists that we have to ask offline agents what is the rate they are comfortable with. Earlier, these agents used to ask us what rates we wanted."
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VACANT ROOMS - A CAUSE FOR WORRY
* After years of doing good business between Christmas and New Year's Eve, this year a lot of hotels are reporting vacant rooms * Neither flying in or out of Goa -- on both Christmas and New Year's Eve -- does not seem to be expensive as compared in the past years
* Low occupancy, as some of the hoteliers said, is because neither Sunburn nor Supersonic is happening in the state
