12 Dec 2020  |   03:49am IST

Goa's hotels are all decked up and waiting

The festive season is around the corner and hotels in Goa are getting ready for the most important time of the year when people visit Goa to party and relax and enjoy Christmas and usher in the New Year. Café spoke to senior personnel in hotels to learn of their expectations and their plans.

Ajit John

The end of this  year is near. And yes that is in this self a reason to celebrate.  The state has witnessed a surge in the number of domestic tourists. Parties have been well attended on the coast. Will this mean the crucial festival season between Christmas and New Year witness good business for the hospitality industry? Will the hotels conduct parties and will it be open to hotel guests only or will outsiders be allowed?

Jacob John Vice President Operations Whispering Palms said the outlook was very interesting with bookings for the period between 29^th and the 31^st having picked up eighty percent. With regards to Christmas, he said the booking was around the fifty to sixty percent mark. He said, “We will be having a soft Christmas party for guests in the house. The New Year bash will also be for guests in the house. That of course will be a paid affair. All the guests will have to pay for it”. The aim he said was to keep the atmosphere happy but the low key with around 100-120 people attending the New Year party which would feature a band.  All the precautions were being followed and he said most of the bookings were from people in Mumbai, Ahmadabad, and South India. He had not received any booking from Delhi.             

Vincent Ramos, Area Director – IHCL, Goa and General Manager – Taj Hotel & Convention Centre, Goa said they expected business to boom. He said “Decorations have been completed in all the hotels. We are now waiting for the guests to come in. We maintain all the sops given by the government and we have proved if we follow the sops we can move ahead. For Christmas, we are at around sixty-five to seventy percent booking and we expect it to increase in the weeks ahead. With regards to the New Year, we are at eighty percent already. It is looking good. We are keeping it very low profile. For instance, we did not have the cake preparation events this time to ensure social distancing. We are keeping safe.”

For another property based in the north Planet Hollywood, the festival season looks pretty good. Anand Chatterjee GM Planet Hollywood said bookings were looking very good. He said “ Post 22^nd it is looking very good till the first week of January. Not many westerners and the majority of the booking is coming from Mumbai and Delhi. We are keeping everything low profile with no parties. We had the cake mixing ceremony and that was a very low profile. We will have an elegant Christmas lunch and a New Year sit down. Like I said there will be no parties”.  He said a decision was taken to not advertise or promote plans to keep crowds very low.  

Ajith Nair

. Head of Sales & Marketing at Zuri White Sands Goa Resort & Casino said they expected around eighty percent booking for the New Year celebrations and it was presented at fifty-five percent. For Christmas celebrations, he said they were on schedule to touch well over ninety percent. He said they were very positive business would be very good this season. He said, “Earlier we had a lot of people flying in but now they are all driving from Mumbai, Pune, Hubli, and Bengaluru.  People from Delhi and Chandigarh are flying in”. Ceremonies like the cake mixing were completed in November and now the team, he said was focused on making the festival season a success. The theme he said for Christmas was Red and Green and for New Year was 8 wonders of the world.”

The industry will hope this season will mark a festive end to what has been a miserable year and the start of a new year which could be good due to the availability of a vaccine in the near future.