Tourism on the decline
Tourism statistics for 2009 compiled by the Union Tourism Ministry raised eyebrows recently, when Goa was ousted from its position in the Top 10 destinations for foreign tourists in India by, of all states, Bihar. The travel and tourism industry in Goa, buoyed by an endless increase in Russians coming to this state, seems to have given this alarming news the go-by.
But the bitter truth, as revealed recently in an article written for ‘The Wall Street Journal’ by Samita Sawardekar, is that the growth rate of foreign tourists coming to Goa is declining. Goa’s share of the number of foreign tourists coming to India has seriously reduced over the past decade. If the government does not urgently remedy matters, it may soon translate into actual numbers.
In 2009, the number of foreign tourists who visited Goa grew by nearly 7 per cent, to 376,000. In Bihar that year, the number of foreign tourists grew by a phenomenal 22 per cent, to reach 423,000. The contrast becomes even more pronounced when one looks at history. In 2001, Goa was visited by 260,000 foreign tourists, while Bihar barely had 85,700 foreign tourists. In just one decade, India’s most backward state has overtaken India’s most forward state in terms of foreign tourist arrivals!
Even more alarming is a comparison between Goa and it main local competitor, Kerala. In 2001, Kerala attracted 209,000 foreign visitors. In 2009-10, that number had swelled to 548,000, representing a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 13 per cent. Goa, in the same span of time, has increased it numbers to only 376,000. Most perturbing, while Kerala’s ‘market share’ of foreign tourists visiting the country has remained more or less constant at 4 per cent, Goa’s ‘market share’ over the past decade has dropped from 4.78 per cent in 2001 to 2.75 per cent in 2009.
‘The Wall Street Journal’ attributes the reasons behind this decline to not just better “competing options” in other states, but also to “the growing images of crime, environmental deterioration and corruption in Goa”. In particular, it refers to the recent cover story in ‘India Today’ about how Goa has become a fulcrum of world drug smuggling. Why, the recent annual budget representation of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) too deviated from its normally purely economic agenda to express concern about drugs and crime in the state.
Tourism contributes over 13 per cent of Goa’s gross domestic product (GDP). It may be only the third-largest sector in terms of value generation after the pharma industry and mining, but its direct and indirect contribution to employment in this state could be as high as 25 per cent or more. If Goa can’t tackle the rot in the system, it may end up killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
Goa’s tourism policy, says ‘The Wall Street Journal’, is distinctly shortsighted. It shows little or no vision in terms of the long-term development needs of the state, and ignores the accompanying ills of tourism. Rapid and uncontrolled tourism in the coastal belt has put severe pressure on land and civic infrastructure like roads, water, sewage, and garbage disposal, it says. But do our policy makers need ‘The Wall Street Journal’ to tell them that? It is visible to the naked eye, in traffic jams, tankers, stink and trash scattered everywhere.
What Goa urgently needs is a massive clean-up to purge the rot across the system, and a long-term vision of sustainable tourism backed by ecologically and culturally sensitive policies and adequate investments in infrastructure, the paper says. Most important is strong political will in the leadership. It asks: “Does Goa have a Nitish Kumar who can convert this crisis into an opportunity…?”
