PANAJI
The sentiment expressed by President of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa, Francisco de Bragança was echoed by others in the tourism industry, who have decried the diminishing returns from hosting the wrong kind of tourists.
Speaking to The Goan, tourism operators across the spectrum have said that Goa would have to rebrand itself in its bid to bring in better quality tourists, thereby earning big bucks without altering the character of the place.
“There is no doubt we have to bring in better tourists. The only persons who benefit from the common tourist in the State is the liquor vendors who sell liquor to these tourists who drink on the beach,” Savio Messias, a hotel operator said.
Another operator Lyndon Alves, who said that Goa’s sobriquet of being a ‘cheap’ destination was driving the right kind of tourists away.
“Goa is increasingly earning a reputation as being a cheap tourist destination. Not cheap in terms of money, in fact Thailand and several other locations are cheaper than we are, but tourists are simply not choosing us,” Lyndon Alves a travel operator said.
“I completely agree with what our president said,” he added.
Messias blamed the way in which Goa is marketed. “More than better infrastructure, Goa needs a different kind of marketing to promote itself. At roadshows and other promotional ventures within the country, the State needs to be branded better,” he added.
The operators were unanimous in the view that the current tourism season was poor if one went by the yardstick of the number of good tourists who have come in.
On Friday, President of the TTAG in comments to the media said that Goa increasingly resembled an ‘over-run’ tourism destination with mass tourism beginning to have a negative effect on the overall tourism experience.
“We are already an over-run destination. We have already crossed the numbers of our carrying capacity. If anyone is seeking that seven or eight million tourists come here, they are seeking the destruction of Goa,” Bragança adding that, “At this rate we will go the way of Costa del Sol in Spain which once upon a time was a much-sought after tourist destination and now is flat,” he said. Others were, however, not so negative saying that a gradual course correction in the State’s tourism direction would definitely take place.
