Even terrorists holiday in Goa
Goa is India’s best holiday destination. If only our leaders knew how true this was, they would take measures to see that this state’s attractions are preserved so that our future generations can reap the benefit of Goa’s gifts. Instead, they are allowing this gem called Goa to deteriorate every passing day and waste away. If they have any motivations for the welfare of this state and its people, apart from their all-consuming obsession with filling their pockets, Goa would not be moving down the value scale in terms of the foreign tourists it gets.
Goa is one of India’s only tourism destinations that attracts a very high percentage of repeat clientele, both from domestic and foreign tourists. Generally, once tourists visit a place they move on to other, newer destinations. Not so with Goa. Here, people come back – some every year and others every other year – there are a few that come several times a year. But nearly each and every tourist returns to Goa. It’s like the advertisement for the potato wafers; you can’t do it just once!
What is the essence of Goa’s attraction? Is it the beaches, or the houses, the little chapels, or the greenery? It’s all of these, of course. But, most of all, it is the people and their ‘susegad’ way of life. Goans are very tolerant. They tend to mind their own business and not bother others, and this is what appeals to tourists. Women from highly conservative families elsewhere in India, who cannot even take off the ‘pallu’ of their sarees and uncover their heads back home, find they can come to Goa, roam around in shorts, and not scandalise anybody at all. Little wonder that honeymooners and young Indian couples come to Goa with such unfailing regularity.
Kerala, which can offer all that Goa does many times over, being so much larger a state with a much longer coastline and with fairly good infrastructure, falls way behind Goa in terms of tourists it attracts per capita. This is because it does not have the big multiplier that makes Goa India’s premier tourist destination; the people and the milieu.
Even Tamil Tigers, Maoists, terrorists and insurgents from the North-East find Goa a great place to cool off when they are on the run from the security forces in their own areas. Goa’s high tourist population helps them blend in and the relatively lax policing ensures they are not discovered. For years, it has been rumoured that all sorts of undesirables have hidden in Goa. Lately, several have been caught. Just this year, Maoists and Manipur insurgents have been arrested in Goa, the latter just two days ago. But rather than being a cause for alarm, there is a silver lining to this. As long as these types find Goa a safe haven, it is unlikely to become a target.
But today, thanks to a combination of a strange rule to prevent foreigners from buying property, bad publicity owing to some highly publicised deaths, and a deteriorating landscape owing to uncontrolled proliferation of garbage, the number of British tourists coming to Goa – and they are the mainstay of Mediterranean Europe’s tourism industry and are still Goa’s largest overseas tourist contingent – are going down. Rising numbers of Russians are taking up the slack, but is that really what our tourism industry wants?
Goa must stop the unnecessary restrictions on British retirees who are legally buying houses here to live. It has to urgently solve the garbage problems in the state. It must put in sewage systems into the villages in the main tourist belts. Tourism is Goa’s bread and butter. It may not generate the bulk of Goa’s GDP, but it gives the most employment to Goans. And, if we want it to go on doing this for generations, we need to take tender, loving care of this state, which is everybody’s favourite holiday destination.
