The numbers are increasing by the day and they don’t look good. The hospitals are not filling up but that seems to be a byproduct of the nature of the variant. It is characterised by mild symptoms but is very infectious. This has meant the tourists who were here over the Christmas and New Year week have left and now the streets are not crowded anymore. This is not to say that tourists are not present in the hotel. How are the hotels managing this and what are their assessments of the future?
Seraffin Cotta who heads the association representing small and medium hotels in the state was blunt when he said after January 5, there were a large number of departures from small and medium hotels. There were no new entries in the hotels, he said. There are, he said, one or two rooms occupied in these hotels. He said the reality of a large number of tourists living in flats which were in gated communities was not taken into consideration by the authorities. He said There was no checking taking place and this was adding to the problem of infections. He went on to say that there were several restaurants which were full and business was being conducted with basic precautions being followed. No proper checks he said were being followed. Serrafin said “Some of these places are still packed and the government is doing nothing. The virus will spread like wildfire. They are operating as if there is no Covid. The waiters are going to get it and so will the cooks”. He hoped this wave did not turn into something that would destroy the livelihood of small and medium hoteliers, many of whom had not yet recovered from the earlier wave.
Savio Messias, former Head of TTAG, admitted that business had dropped by over 50 percent. He said “With fewer crowds we are not really worried but we make sure they follow all the sops. The numbers are distressing. Flights are being reduced and Indigo has reduced its flight by 20 percent all over the country. This could be another wave and we could be without business. We could go back to where we were 5 months ago.”
With regards to charters from Kazakhstan, Sheikh Ismail said everything was moving along as per the schedule. All the protocols were being followed with a stand having been put up at the airport everyone was being checked.
Nilesh Shah who heads TTAG said there were a lot of cancellations and with airlines announcing a reduction in flights all over the problem could only get worse. Hotels in Goa he said were experiencing huge cancellations. People he said would only come if they had the confidence that all precautions were being taken but with this variant being very infectious, it was tough. He however expressed confidence that the peak of this wave would be reached by the end of this month and business would stabilise and improve after the elections. He said “We are very optimistic and now people in Goa are recovering in five days. Overall our message is, follow the protocol”. He felt another obstacle right now were the differing protocols followed by different states. For example anyone leaving Goa to travel to Karnataka would have to take the test while that was not the case for anyone coming over to Goa. This he said was causing inconveniences for everyone.
Ganesh the GM at a hotel in Vagator said he was following the protocols and ensuring everyone’s temperature was checked but the task he said had eased up because occupancy had dropped drastically. He said “We have 28 rooms but only 10 are occupied. We can manage easily. We believe the situation will improve in a couple of months and it should be all normal then. We are keeping our fingers crossed”. Another hotel Candolim was asking for proof of injections by asking for certificates and the public areas and the rooms were sanitized everyday. Cancellations Saroj Singh the GM of the hotel said were increasing but that was a situation faced by everyone in the state as well as in the country. He expected business to improve in a couple of months but hoped it was faster than that.
The industry is doing what needs to be done, but it looks like everyone will need to do their bit to ensure this wave does not hang around longer than necessary.
