PANAJI
After initially showing signs of recovery, particularly in domestic travel, post COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism industry has entered into a state of recession due to negligible footfall leading to poor business, Calangute BJP MLA Michael Lobo said, while maintaining that the allied activities too have crashed along the coastal belt.
Speaking during Prudent’s Head On, Lobo highlighted the severe challenges currently facing the sector, acknowledging that the once-thriving industry is now grappling with declining numbers of both international and domestic tourists, prompting closure of shacks, restaurants and other related establishments.
“Goa’s tourism industry is in recession mode. We have to accept it. Hotel occupancy is down by 50 per cent, and many good restaurants are shutting down. Even the hotel occupancies are struggling to stay above 30 per cent,” Lobo said, emphasising the urgent need for corrective measures to address the situation.
“The so-called influencers have passed negative comments with regards to Goa and yes, that too had an impact. But, in those comments they were demanding that Goa should bring the change… the message is clear that there is something not right with Goa tourism and that needs to be changed. We were also angry at those influencers initially but somewhere I realised that we need to accept that we need to bring change and some correction mechanism has to start,” he added.
Lobo explained that the tourism season in Goa used to depend on tourists from Europe and Russia; however, post Russia-Ukraine war, there has been a major decline in Russian tourists for the last two years, while Ukrainian footfall has become nil.
“Indian tourist footfall has also dropped drastically. We have seen recession happening in India and that is the upper middle class and middle class, who used to travel to Goa either by flight or train or self-drive, have slowed down by almost 50 per cent… this is the biggest segment that used to fill up our guest houses, small rooms, etc,” he said.
Lobo said that the State industry was hit by recession after many years and a similar situation was experienced almost nine to ten years back.
Speaking about corrective measures, Lobo said that the government needs to work out a solution as far as the taxi aggregator issue is concerned as the Tourism and Transport Department have a deadlock. He slammed the government for lack of seriousness while demanding that rather than introducing an “outside” aggregator, let the local taxi operators have their own app.
