WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2024
Had Goa Tourism acted smartly it could have cashed in on the work from home approach applied by private companies for their employees. All it needed was some quick out-of-the-box thinking and strategies adopted to turn around tourism in the State to a certain extent. A few hotel groups did it. They put together packages for persons who would want to take their work from home to a different level by working from a hotel room or villa. Goa, in this aspect became a fair bit popular with a few high spenders who were willing to book a long stay in a luxury hotel, working from their hotel room during the day and unwinding on the shores of Goa in the evening. Had Goa Tourism visualised this possibility, or even latched on to it after seeing how the private sector managed to do so, it could have put together a package for even those who didn’t have the extra cash for a started hotel, but may have opted for budget hotels from where to work out of.
With Covid-19 pandemic restrictions now being lifted across the country, it may be too late for the department to introduce such packages. The lost opportunity, however, shows just how disconnected the department is with the tourism possibilities that exist in the current scenario. It is, however, not too late to formulate other plans to boost the industry in the State. For that matter, it is not just the government department and corporation that need to wake up to the new realities of tourism, but all the stakeholders. The pandemic has altered the tourism focus and the industry – hoteliers, restaurateurs, tour operators, travel agents and allied services – will have to adapt to new business models to survive. There will be tourists, but their demands will be new, and Goa will probably be flying into unchartered territory, and here’s where the State has to come alive to the requirements and change strategies to meet the new normal in tourism.
Despite the grim pandemic situation that still pervades, the current numbers of tourists in Goa are an indication that trust and credibility in Goa as a tourism destination in the midst of Covid-19 have been restored. These are leisure tourists who had the option to stay within the safety of their home but chose to travel to Goa, and they would be the best ambassadors of Goa’s safety in difficult times. That’s an advantage that has to be built upon. Goa has another plus point as it stands out in the Indian tourism market and the it has already been established that domestic tourism will lead the recovery in the sector. What Goa requires is to build upon these two advantages to stimulate growth in the tourism sector in the coming months. The question is whether Goa Tourism is capable of doing this?
The disconnect between what industry wants and what Goa Tourism feels is the best way forward and is evident from the manner in which stakeholders have sought major changes in the Goa Tourism Master Plan and Policy that was released last month, after an inordinate delay of years. It’s beginning to appear that nobody in the industry has found favour with the new policy and master plan. In the current circumstances, when Goa has placed almost all of its economic revival hopes on tourism, the discontent of the tourism stakeholders with the contents of the policy does not bode well for the future of the industry in the State. Goa Tourism needs to simultaneously introduce short term and long term measures to give the industry a new direction. Merely notifying a policy and master plan that was submitted months ago, when the prevailing situation was far different, does not serve the purpose.
