The tourists of Goa have spoken, turns out, Goans are not the only ones that are missing the Goan feel in Goa, but tourists who have had the luxury of visiting Goa during its good times are now seeing the place deteriorating and not worth the vacation. While there are many factors that have come into play for the dwindling numbers, a little bit of fall in the numbers might not be such a bad thing, in fact a soft reset taking away the froth might be healthy for the long-term health of the industry.
In the past, Goa’s tourism has done well for the tourists and its stakeholders equally, as both parties got a fairly good deal. The tourists got their money’s worth and the stakeholders their return on investment. The tourists’ pockets would not get completely empty while visiting Goa and most of the revenues generated by the industry would go into the stakeholders’ pockets, before the government started taxing the hell out of the industry.
Leave the tax extortion debate aside at the moment, the real problem it seems is that the tourist while on holiday starts eyeing on the revenue the tourism industry generates and decides then and there that he wants to take a plunge into the tourism business. While India is a free country and everyone is welcome to open businesses wherever they feel like, the situation has come to such an extent that too much unwanted capacity got generated into the market in the process. Finally, it all comes down to demand-supply dynamics, even if the demand remains the same, but since the supply has increased manifold, it is bound to reflect on the occupancy levels.
Warren Buffet once famously said, “Only when the tide goes out, do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Till the going is good and everyone is making money, all fault lines tend to get masked, but with demand starting to plateau, and capacity has increased exponentially, we will know shortly who remains in the race and who is forced to give it all up.
Leveraged fly-by-night operators with the intention of making a fast buck on Goa’s tourism, will be ones to take the first hit. While economics will play its own part, these fair weather friends of Goa must also realise that it is not correct to assume that they can take the tourists for granted. The profile of Goa’s tourists is anything but ignorant; they know exactly where to stay and what to eat, who is putting their soul in their cooking and who is fleecing them in the garb of exotic food. In Benaulim for example there is a restaurant with modest interiors where the tourists do not mind queuing to get a table, while there are plenty of new restaurants expensively decorated but almost devoid of tourists. Tourists know exactly who has started historically small and focuses on the authentic and has only now started monetising their unique cuisine, while the new entrants with huge investments on décor, but hardly any focus on the food exists only to make a fast buck.
Tourists are well-informed and the more we confuse them, the more they will refrain from visiting Goa. They also know the difference between a Goan thali, a Rajasthani thali or an Udupi thali. The writer is not suggesting that we should ban the Rajasthani Thali or the Udupi Thali but if these thalis start beating the Goan thali by numbers then the purpose of visiting Goa is lost. The same goes for snacks, when tourists come to Goa they expect to find the Ras omelette and the choris pao by the dozens, the same way we Goans expect to find dhoklas while visiting Gujarat. Senselessly mixing the cuisines is bound to get the tourists confused with the culture shock and lose the meaning of visiting Goa. Also all these foods have a certain cost element, agreed there is high inflation, but the day the price gets fired up and the tourists get a whiff that they are being swindled, they are going to ditch Goa even if we believe it is paradise on earth.
The same goes to music, most tasteful tourists might enjoy the local beat of a Lorna-Chris Perry combination even if they don’t understand the lyrics, the least they want to come here and listen to ‘beedi jalaile’ even if it happens to be trending. Agreed, we cannot force private wedding parties to dance to our tunes, but little do these starred hotels realise that in order to go out of the way to entertain the wedding party and their weird requests, it slowly puts off other guests living on the property and who chose Goa for the peace of mind stay. People running the tourism industry have still not figured out the difference between hospitality and slavery.
For lack of space yours truly has only focused on the local cuisine and music, but there are so many examples where Goa has unfortunately managed to confuse the tourists and is unable to maintain the uniqueness Goa once had. If a tourist visits Goa, it means he wants to experience a change, if it reminds him of his hectic city life then there is no meaning of coming to Goa. People in charge of policy in Goa, if at all they exist, better diversify from tourism into other non-polluting industries also. We should not milk tourism to such an extent that it eventually reaches its breaking point.
Lot of money is riding on tourism in Goa, so much so that even Goans have joined the bandwagon by purchasing properties and then renting them out to tourists. Don’t mean to discourage anyone but please do proper math before you take the plunge. Property buying in Goa had double benefits all this while because the rates were always on an upward trajectory and the rental yield was like an added bonus. Tourism sector is showing some sort of fatigue and investing in property at such high prices only for a miniscule rental yield might not make financial sense.
(The author is a business consultant)
