Charter tourism drops by 25%
Foreigners slowly preferring scheduled flights
SURAJ NANDREKAR
PANJIM, APRIL 28
Call it an impact of global meltdown or the rising number of crimes against foreigners, the State has seen a drop of 25 per cent in the charter tourist arrivals in last two years.
The state receives nearly two lakh charter tourists every year but in the last two years the number has gone down to below 1.5 lakh tourist.
In 2005-06, 719 charter flights landed in the State bringing in 1.80 lakh tourists, however, the next year saw about 10 per cent drop as 720 charter flights brought in only 1.69 lakh tourists.
In 2007-08 the state got 758 flights bringing in 1.85 lakh tourists, which was the highest the state received in last five years.
Incidentally, 2008 was also the year which saw sudden spurt in crime against foreigners — such as rape and murder of British teenager Scarlet Keeling.
Many feel, this too had an adverse impact on the charter tourist arrivals.
Thereafter, the State saw sharp decrease in arrivals as in 2008-09 only 615 charter flights landed with 1.45 lakh tourists.
The 2009-10 season also saw further drop in arrivals with only 592 flights arriving with 1.35 lakh tourists.
Despite these statistics, the Tourism department says the drop in charter tourism has not affected the State as the number of foreign tourist arrivals by schedule flights has increased.
“I agree there is substantial drop in charter tourists arrival but we have to also see that there is equivalent increase in foreign tourist arrival,” Tourism Director Swapnil Naik told Herald when contacted.
Naik said that more and more foreigners now prefer to come by schedule flights rather than the charter flights.
“The year 2005-06 and 2007-08 saw sudden rise in charter tourist but then it went down,” he said.
This, Naik said, is due to change in trend the flights are getting bigger.
“But the number of tourist arrival is the same,” he said.
Officials in the government also said that the recent incident of ash cloud over the Europe for over a week also played its part in less charter tourist arrivals this year as many flights were cancelled.
