Well the season has commenced with the domestic tourists coming in large numbers.
They are saving the bacon of the tourism industry. It has been bloodied by the
virus which took away tens of thousands of jobs. It was brutal without a doubt.
Many employees were reduced to seeking help from social institutions and others
left for their villages. Many have not returned several months later. The time
has come for the foreign tourists to fly in. Charter flights usually bring in a
very large number of tourists from the Uk, Russia, Kazakhstan and other
European countries.
This year however is a major improvement
over last year when no charter flights landed at Dabolim airport. This year
there will be flights coming in from Russia and Kazakhstan. The UK however
remains off limits. With the virus spreading and India having placed that
country on the red list, don’t expect Bob and Charles to be holidaying on the
beaches of Goa. Ernest Dia, COO TCI, said bookings from Kazakhstan looked very
good and he was hopeful for very good business. He said each aircraft would fly
in 300 passengers and that would have happened twice a week. This was expected
to continue till the end of March. Russia he said was different in the sense
there were some problems but he hoped everything worked out fine. Asked about
the UK he sighed and said perhaps something could happen in January perhaps
towards the end of the month but in his estimation, he felt it would be better
to not expect anything this season. The first flight from Kazakhstan is
expected on December 25 and the second on the 28th.
Abida Kumar the VP Operations of Minar
Travels India another charter operator speaking a couple of days earlier said
she expected decent business from the Russian and Kazakh market. With regards
to the UK market she said as of now nothing could move unless the situation on
the ground improved. Asked about the kind of numbers she expected from the two
markets she said this year perhaps around 10,000 from the 50 or 60,000 each of
the five operators brought into the state during the season. Abida was hoping
for the best. Her first flight from Kazakhstan is flying in on December 16 and
each passenger stays for an average of seven days and she expected on average 5
flights from the country every week.
That may seem like decent news in a really bad time for the
industry. However there were those who felt it would mean much. Serafin Cota
who heads the medium and small hotels expressed his happiness at this
development. He said “It is good to learn that flights are coming from
Kazakhstan but you have to remember the numbers coming in are miniscule. There
are thousands of hotels in Goa and each of them may get just one or two of
these visitors. We invest a lot of money each season to play host to a thousand
plus tourists staying in our hotel. We can earn then. Now this is too small,
how can we manage? We will earn a pittance. Anyway, let’s see how it all works
out.”
Another hotelier from the beach belt who did not want to come on
record said after investing so much in order to be on the safe side of various
government regulations the number of foreign charter tourists coming in was
miniscule. The hotelier expressed the hope the number of domestic tourists
coming in increased even more and stayed for longer durations to ensure
business was good at least during the festival season. He hoped the situation
kept improving in the days ahead.
This
seems like some good news. One can only hope the industry improves and yes the
virus gets controlled.
