SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
The mind blowing party season of December 2022 in Goa saw massive traffic jams which stranded hundreds of tourists and locals. When roads are jammed and tourism places overcrowded with public services and facilities unable to handle the influx, it’s a clear case of over exploitation of nature for monetary gain. In 2022, the Goa government was preparing for a pre-pandemic level of 81 lakhs tourists i.e. more than 5 times the population of Goa.
The exploitation of Goa’s pristine nature and its brand as a favourite destination is to maximize revenue collection. The tourism industry contributes about 17% towards the state GDP and benefits an influential section of the population. The full focus of attracting tourists has been on gambling, fun and party time events. Drugs and sex is an integral part of that trade. Goa failed to promote quality tourism sustainable in the long run in a tint state.
The billion dollar industry is known to destroy the environment, disturb local culture and distort land and real estate rates. Locals in tourism destination areas such as Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy etc. find housing to be a prohibitive as the rich and elite from other destinations acquire holiday homes. How can Goa be far behind? Over-tourism can only be catastrophic for the locals. High-end tourism is not sustainable in a place where water is in short supply with swimming pools and golf courses. What is required for a tiny state like Goa is a model of sustainable family tourism in keeping with its size both geographical and per capita.
What unbridled tourism can do to a small state is seen in Venice. For hundreds of years the beautiful Lagoon city attracted travellers. Venice did everything from organizing annual carnivals, art festivals, film festivals which brought in revenue for the local council but that has turned out to be scourge for the locals. Cost of apartments went to all time high and rents sky-rocketed to unaffordable levels. Tourism related business and shops selling souvenir items do extremely well but groceries and items of daily consumption became no longer profitable. Public transport (‘vaporetti’) is always overcrowded even during the lean season. Cost of living has become expensive. That has only reduced the quality of life. In good times there are around 30 million tourists per year (around 80 thousand tourists per day) i.e. 600 tourists per local inhabitant! Massive cruise ships bring hordes of tourists. The cruise ships threatened the water ways and the tourists jammed the streets. There were one lakh and twenty thousands locals 30 years back. Unable to bear the brunt, three locals quit the city state every day for greener pastures elsewhere, with only about 50 thousand locals left now to call Venice their home state! As the local population was falling at an alarming rate, UNESCO had to intervene and threaten to put Venice on the world heritage danger list in 2017.
Another popular holiday destination is France. The French biggest worry has been the holiday homes/retirement homes by the rich and the elite of their country and other countries in French villages and Parisian neighbourhood. France in a way opted for a balanced approach and did not go for over tourism. For them protection of their culture and landscape was of high importance. The retirement home/holiday home attracts additional property and housing tax of merely 36.2% helping the French in maintaining some balance.
Bhutan has its high value, low volume (now high value low impact) policy which maximized economic benefit of tourism while minimizing negative impact in indigenous culture, environment by controlling tourist’s arrivals. European Union will impose tourist tax from 2023. Even the city of Dubrovnik in Croatia known as a cruise destination is limiting ship arrivals from 2019. Under UNESCO pressure cruise ships are banned entry from the summer of 2021 in Venice and access to Venice would now be regulated from January 2023 to those registered in advance and with entry fee of 10 Euros. A restraint on over tourism is the new beginning from 2023.
How a state will exploit its nature would be dependent on the state policy. Exploiting the nature as cash cow is detrimental in the long run. Whether to preserve environment and protect locals or maximize revenue is a call any state has to take. The restriction on tourists can be decided controlling the number of hotel beds heavily taxing holiday homes and other infrastructure and putting regulations in place like the noise pollution rules, restriction on gambling. Award winning travel and tourism journalist Elizabeth Becker tells us ‘the toughest problem is breaking the habit of politicians being too close of the industry to the detriment of their country. Money talks in tourism as in any other big business.’.
The beauty of a place will always allure visitors but it cannot be become a curse for the locals. Investment in better infrastructure could be towards a sustainable tourism activity but the state and the local population cannot be victims of that success. Thirty million travellers visited Venice in 2019 before pandemic and one thousand locals exited Venice that year. The flip side is Venice earned heavily on tourism but could not save its own citizens. That’s the tragedy!
Nicola Pianon a Venice native and Managing Director of the Boston Consulting Group cries ‘Venice is in danger of disappearing. If we do not stop and reverse this, Venice in 10 years will be a desert’. The few Venetians left in Venice are crying to reclaim their city from mass tourism. The uniqueness of Goa and its pristine beaches will attract lakhs of visitors. We have to be on guard to protect Goans and the landscape. Let us not go the Venice way.
(The writer is a practicing advocate and a political thinker)
