Despite road shows and international travel marts, tourist arrivals from most foreign locales have shown a downward trend. While the decline in Russian tourists may be ascribed to the currency crisis in that country, the decline in tourists from other countries needs some explaining. US tourist arrivals saw a humongous decline from 9502 in the previous year to only 999.
Tourism officials should stop going on junkets and start studying the arrival figures put out by their own department. Tourist inflow from France, for example, has nearly doubled from 20,000 to 35,000 (approx). Hence the tourism officials would do well to concentrate on this market. Similarly, British tourists has also shown an increase from 1,45.000 to 1,46,000. This segment was the mainstay of our tourism for several year. We need to relentlessly pursue the Brits and regain that lost market. Russians and to a lesser extent the Swiss need our attention.
We should use all our resources on our core markets instead of spreading them out thinly on insignificant markets. It is only when our core markets have achieved their full potential that we can concentrate on smaller markets.
Prof Robert Castellino, Calangute
