the goan I network
PANAJI
Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar on Wednesday said that there had been a steady increase in foreign and domestic tourists in the state over the last three years. Ajgaonkar gave the information in a written reply in the Assembly to an unstarred question asked by Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat.
Kamat had requested information of tourist arrivals in the state from April 1, 2015 till date.
According to figures furnished by Ajgaonkar’s department, there were 44,77,324 tourists who arrived in Goa from 1st April 2015 to 31st December 2015.
Further, there was a steady increase in the number of tourists visiting Goa.
In 2016, the number of tourists who visited were 63,30,744. From these, 6,80,683 were foreign, while the rest were domestic.
The number of tourists jumped to 77,85,693 in the year 2017. Of these, 8,90,459 were foreign, while the rest were Indian.
Tourist increased further in 2018 to 80,15,400. Of these, 9,33,841 were foreign, making an over two lakh increase in the number of tourists visiting the state since 2016.
Till May 2019, Ajgaonkar said that 27,19,154 tourists (foreign and domestic) had arrived in Goa.
The last however is a provisional figure.
In the year 2018, Goa received maximum number of foreign tourists from Russia and UK. 3,33,565 tourists visited the state from Russia, followed by 2,94,569 tourists who visited from the UK.
Goa does not receive as much tourist traffic from any other country, with the third highest number of foreign tourists coming from Ukraine at 46,826 in 2018.
In 2018, Goa saw 21,744 tourists visiting from Portugal (or on a Portuguese passport as the case may be). The data on tourist arrivals in the state is compiled by the Tourism Department on the basis of the data collected / provided by the Airport, Charter flights, Cruise liners, Hotels, Railways and Kadamba Transport authorities, said Ajgaonkar.
In another question asked to the Minister by Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco, about whether the government was aware that it is facing a huge challenge in bringing the tourism industry back on track, and what was the reason for the same, Ajgaonkar replied that as the tourist inflow to the state was on the rise, there was no question of the Department facing any challenge.
