Raindrop tourism is picking up in Goa. Domestic tourism during the lean season has shown a whopping increase of nearly one lakh arrivals in 2014-2015 as against the previous year. And that’s a huge increase considering that our ministers and tourism officials are more interested in promoting foreign tourist for obvious reasons. Foreign tourists too have increased by about 8,000 arrivals during the monsoon. The majority of these tourists are from the Gulf region primarily because it coincides with the summer vacations.
Domestic tourism can grow exponentially during the lean season. The tourism department may consider using national TV to advertise instead of conducting road shows. A toll free tourism helpline may be displayed along with the TV advertisement. As far as Gulf tourists are concerned it would be worthwhile to attract the huge Goan diaspora by displaying tourism banners and posters in Gulf parishes.
Prof Robert Castellino, Mumbai
