Yet another tourism season has ended now and the tour operators and travel agencies are busy checking their accounts to get an understanding of how they fared. The international tourist has returned home to the European summer or the tail end of a brutal winter. And Goa waits for them to return in four or five months, once the Goan monsoon has largely receded. But what are the Goan charter operators and other players doing to ensure business gets better next season.
Bush Miranda, MD, Cicerone Air Transport Services, said the just concluded season was only average though he laughed heartily and said his company had registered a 200% growth over the previous year which had just 14 flights come in. This tourist season he had 340 flights come in which was a dramatic increase but which paled in comparison to two seasons ago when he had 840 flights.
The just concluded season saw flights from Finland. This season no German groups came through his company. With regards to the new season scheduled to start on October 2016, he admitted there was nothing concrete.
“Countries like Croatia, the Czech Republic and Germany are on the radar. Trends will emerge by the end of July as to the direction of the next season. Flights from Finland are expected to commence in December. With regards to Russia, discussions are on and we expect tours to commence from that country too,” he said.
Ismail sheikh of Concord Tours said the just concluded season was ok though there was a reduction in the number. The company had brought in 23,000 tourists in last year but that had reduced to 20,000 this year. Most of the flights came from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. He expected Russia to be big next year because Turkey and Egypt wee not happening for the Russians. There would be more trips to Goa from Ukraine and he expected the first charter flight to start from October end and would last till May first week. He expected a minimum of one charter flight to come in from that part f the word.
In a continuation of a trend which commenced in the just concluded season, six scheduled flights from Thomas cook were scheduled from the UK. This was confirmed by Martin Joseph Thypodath of Freedom Holidays Pvt Ltd. With regards to the Russians, he said nothing was confirmed. He however said the international operators were looking beyond Goa. Another operator based in Panjim who did not want to come on record said it was a little too early to comment on the forthcoming season. Russia, he said had to be given time because in the just concluded season they had preferred to go to Greece since Turkey was closed. The trade he said had to look at new markets. Croatia, Czech Republic were markets being considered.
The newly appointed President of the TTAG, Savio Messias felt the new season later this year would be better. He expected to witness an increase in the number of British arrivals given the trend in the bookings. With regards the Russians, Messias said they usually booked at the last minute.
He said “The Germans are now willing to come back to Goa though the problem of night parking of aircrafts was still present. This usually means they have to fly to Dubai, park overnight and fly back to Goa the next morning to pick up passengers returning home. So far nothing has been done about this problem”. A delegation had met with the home minister in Delhi this week to discuss issues like the immigration counter due to a paucity of staff at Dabolim airport along with other issues. He hoped everything would be sorted out. He revealed the home minister and the tourism minister were expected in the State sometime next week.
As the trade takes stock ad decides on its next move, they will hope the season in October 2016 will be much better than the seasons of the recent past which have give them much grief and nothing else.
