No rise in charter
flights: Parulekar
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PANAJI
Replying to a question in the monsoon session of assembly, Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar, said that there was no increase in the number of charter flights to Goa. The question was asked for the time period between October 2015 till now.
A huge number of foreign tourists come every year to Goa through charter flights with Russians emerging as the biggest contributor to this segment of tourists. But, since the Russian currency has been on a downswing for close to two years now, the Russian aviation sector too has faced crunch. This has affected charter segment adversely.
Parulekar also replied that a total of 798 charter flights brought 1,58,779 foreign tourists to Goa between October 2015 and May 2016. Even after the slowdown, Russia emerged as the biggest contributor to this segment.
Parulekar said that 500 charter flights arrived in Goa from Russia between October 2015 and May 2016 bringing 1,0,6754 tourists.
UK emerged as the second largest contributor to charter segment as it sent 131 flights to Goa in the same time-frame, which brought 34,549 tourists. Interestingly, 16 charter flights came from Iran to Goa as well bringing 1,869 tourists.
Tourism department has been making efforts to attract tourists from Middle East and it seems those efforts have yielded some fruits.
Apart from it, Goa received charter flights from Finland, Kazakhstan and Ukraine as well as bringing in 2,145, 3,533 and 9,929 tourists respectively between October 2015 and May 2016.
