THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
KARSTEN MIRANDA
MARGAO: In a shocking case of ‘killing the golden goose’, close to 100 foreign tourists, passengers on the cruise ship ‘Ocean Odyssey’ that arrived at the Mormugao Port on Wednesday, were forced to go back to their ship without even going for their pre-booked sight-seeing trip in Goa as the local taxi union members obstructed the buses that was supposed to take them on their tour.
Not only did this incident leave all the tourists extremely frustrated and angry over what had transpired, the cruise ship is also considering not visiting Goa again.
Sources informed Herald that the owners of the ship have reported this matter to the American Embassy in Delhi, who will be bringing up this issue with the Central government as American citizens were held’ hostage’. This is considered to have very serious repercussions for the cruise tourism industry in Goa.
These tourists, from America, are considered to be of high-quality but instead of going on excursion, they had to first walk outside the gate of the port as the taxi operators were not allowing the buses inside and then had to walk back to the ship, not getting a chance to see Goa, just the opposite of the hospitality the State is supposed to be famous for. When they tried to board the bus, the taxi drivers surrounded the bus and threatened the driver that they would break the bus if the passengers got into it and if their demands were not met. The guests were forced to walk a distance of 1 km back to the ship.
In this regard, Francis Vaz, the manager of Le Passage to India, has complained to the TTAG, the Tourism Department, the Chief Minister and DGP.
Vaz, who had rushed to the Mormugao Police Station earlier on Wednesday, had to watch in horror as the passengers had to return to the ship and even witness the manner in which the local taxi drivers had blocked their buses.
It is to be noted that Vaz had written to the Mormugao Police Inspector on December 10th informing him that they are the shore excursion agents and that the ship is arriving at the Port on Wednesday. Moreover, the tourists had to be refunded with compensation.
Incidentally, Mormugao Port Authority (MPA) charged around Rs 2.5 to Rs 3 lakh to every ship to berth and they were criticised for remaining mute spectators without ensuring the safety of passengers.
“This is a really unfortunate incident which has happened and the cruise ship captain and the shore excursion manager of the cruise ship is very upset about the whole situation. None of our excursions could be operated and the guests had to be refunded the money they had paid for the tour with compensation,’ said Vaz in his complaint letter.
“This is a huge loss of revenue to us particularly when we have just started operating our business after a two-and-half-year gap due to the pandemic. The Cruise Ship Captain has already informed us that they will never come to the Goa port anymore and will inform all other ships of what they had to go through at Goa port today,” Vaz continued.
“They have also said that no other cruise ports in India have these issues of taxi drivers blocking the excursion buses and everything runs smoothly at these ports. This will create a very ugly picture for Goa tourism and put us in a bad light", Vaz added in the complaint.
Speaking to Herald, Vaz reiterated that the ship's Captain has said that he will never come to Goa again and instead prefers to go to Cochin where they are welcomed by all authorities.
“This is going to spell the end of high-end cruise tourism in Goa. What is the use of building cruise terminals if the entire industry is left in the hands of these goons. How do you expect us to promote and bring cruise ships to Goa if the government does not assist us,” said Vaz, while speaking to Herald.
This incident is expected to be raised at the meeting to be held at the Tourism Board’s committee meeting on Thursday.
Vaz has also called for strict action to be taken on the taxi drivers and the Union leaders at the Mormugao port to avoid such incidents in the future.
NARRATION OF THE ORDEAL IN THE COMPLAINT
“We had a booking of four buses in which three buses were to do the Temple & Spice Plantation tour and one bus was to do the Old tour All four coaches as per schedule were supposed to leave from the port for the excursions at 1.30 pm,” read Vaz’s complaint to the authorities that narrated the bitter ordeal he had faced.
“Two of our buses reported outside the port at 12.40 pm and were about to enter the yellow gate of the port when the taxi union leader Omkar stopped the buses and started arguing with the driver and did not allow him to enter,” Vaz added.
Vaz further pointed out that he had intervened at this point and asked Omkar why they are not allowing the buses inside but Omkar told him that ‘he should have been intimidated a day in advance if any travel agent had to bring buses inside the port to pick guests for excursions’.
“I informed Omkar that these are pre-booked tours and we are the cruise ship authorised agents to provide the service to them. But he did not listen and asked the drivers of the buses to go back as there were other cruise ship buses entering the port to drop guests from their excursions, I told the drivers to go and park on the hillock near the port and wait for my instructions,” said Vaz.
He then immediately called the Mormugao Police Station and informed the PI Raghoba Kamat that their buses were being stopped by the union leader who was not allowing them to enter the port.
After the PI spoke to Omkar on the phone and asked him to release the buses, Omkar informed Vaz that he can take only one bus inside the port to pick up the guests for the excursion and also to send the other buses back and give the business to the taxi drivers.
“I informed him that these are pre-booked excursions and that guests will not pay for a taxi to do this excursion. In the meantime, I received a call from the PI stating that he had called Omkar to the Police station and that I should also come,” Vaz added.
When Vaz reached the police station at 1.55 pm, Omkar was already sitting with the PI.
“I informed the Police Inspector that this international cruise ship is a prestigious one and to please convince the taxi union leader to release our buses. However, Omkar was not ready to listen and in a while he walked out of the Police Inspector’s room. I called Omkar on his mobile phone to request him to release buses but he told me he would not do so,” said Vaz.
In the meantime, approximately 40 guests had already started walking to the bus parked almost 1 km from the ship on the hillock near the Port.
“The guests tried boarding the bus but a group of taxi drivers came and stopped them from boarding and started abusing the bus with filthy language and threatened that they would break the bus. Seeing this, our driver of the bus started moving the bus towards the airport to find a safe parking spot but some taxi drivers followed him till the airport,” Vaz added.
Vaz lamented that the cruise ship guest who had walked all the way from the cruise ship to the bus had to walk back one km to the ship.
By this time it was already 3 pm and as there was no solution to the problem from the PI, Vaz went back to the Port where he again requested Omkar to pick the guests for the sight-seeing but he adamant not allow us to operate the excursion for the guests.
