The State Tourism Department’s first post-pandemic international travel mart has raised a few eyebrows, mainly because of the choice of destination. The department has chosen to promote tourism in a country which has a strong Goa connection with historical, trade and immigration links, but a very negligible number of tourist arrivals. Portugal has never been a favourite market for Goa, the State gets very few tourists from the Iberian country. Tourism stakeholders in the State have not accompanied the government delegation and this is an indication of how the professionals view the Portuguese market. Besides, despite several efforts in the past Goa has not been able to convert the lukewarm interest shown by the Portuguese into arrivals.
Past efforts at attracting Portuguese tourists have never been successful. The State has participated in travel marts in Lisbon, but the number of arrivals from Portugal after the marts have never risen appreciably. There have also been discussions on the possibility of charter flights from that country but these too have never been taken forward. For instance, in 2009 and then in 2013 there had been a proposal to fly in charters from Portugal to Goa, with the idea of clubbing Spanish and French tourists with these charters originating from Portugal. The then Ambassador of Portugal to India had displayed interest in this with the hope that this would also attract Indian tourists to Portugal. From 2009 till now, and two trips of the Portuguese Prime Minister to India and another by the President of Portugal, both of whom also visited Goa, there has been no taking this plan forward.
The Tourism Department needs to have something very special in its kitty to change the way that the Portuguese travellers view Goa and entice them to holiday here. Without a firm marketing pitch little can be expected from this trip. This is the first such tourism trip abroad, but there will be more to follow but before the delegations take off, there has to be a plan formulated by the government and the industry on how they will market the State abroad. As the State recovers from the pandemic Goa definitely needs to expand its tourism market, especially as regular commercial flights will soon start landing and taking off from Goa.
The charter segment that was once dominated by Germany and Britain has now been taken over by Russia, with a few Scandinavian countries also flying in planes to the State in past seasons. The Russia-Ukraine war has created uncertainty on charter arrivals from those countries, so the market is currently wide open for the State, and Goa may well have to depend upon tourists who fly independently and not necessarily on charters. That, however, requires a proper planned effort and merely visiting countries abroad for travel marts will not bring results. The trips have to be followed up aggressively.
Goa’s effort at promoting the State across the globe and wanting to tap potential markets requires direction and cannot be a hit and miss endeavour, that relies on the possibility of a trip being successful on the basis of luck. This calls for a complete revamp of the tourism marketing in the State where bureaucrats and stakeholders together decide where to promote the State and how it is to be done. The dependency on tourism for economic reasons is growing and the industry needs a boost after the two years during which it faced severe setbacks due to the pandemic. While the domestic tourists have kept the industry going, the return of the foreign tourists is required to make it all happen. If after past disappointments Portugal delivers this time, it will be a start.
