We read and watched the ongoing discussions in the State Assembly sessions and just going through it, I am ashamed to see the way the discussions going on…just for the galleries and there is nothing much of a substance. I can say this cause all these years’s assembly sessions were just taken for granted and if only adhered to, today we would not have been in a mess that we are in, specifically on tourism front.
Why doesn’t the government pay heed to the letters that appear on the dailies which could have given them the insight what citizens wish to have to their State. But given that the ‘garbage’ that we have in the State assembly, nothing concrete will take shape for Goa. The ministers are just running after the tenders or the contracts which shows how lucrative those contracts are.
Secondly, when the tourism department itself has no visionary road map in the form of Tourism Policy, how would they function to take forward any initiatives they talk about?
In my previous article I had highlighted the urgent needs that the tourism industry could ponder upon and acted. Giving a few of them below.
1. Goa should first and foremost inculcate discipline and reign in the domestic tourists who are a ‘mother of all nuisances.’
2. Prevent all the inter-State tourist buses from entering the beach belts. Instead their buses should be stopped/parked in the city bus-stands. And the tourists should be shuttled at their destinations by local shuttle services/transport.
3. Let there be the THEME-PARKS at respective coastal belts where the tourists have the luxury of hiring a cycle to go around; have the foodstalls all along the park at the designated areas in the locality. This will give the locals a chance to share a pie out of tourist trade.
4. Reign in the Taxi trade and sort out the total mess which has now become a disgrace to one and all.
5. Make the airport arrival hall, I mean outside the arrival hall a people friendly place worthy to receive the guests/visitors. The present scenario is pathetic with all drivers moving freely as if to pounce upon the first visitor. Their indiscipline and loitering all around gives a bad taste to any visitor.
6. Why the taxis should be parked in front of the arrival halls while the visitors’ are deprived to put up more than five minutes.
These timings have to be revised to at least 10 minutes so that visitors load and unload their baggage. Parking at the airport is such a disgraceful scene in and around.
7. Let there be a clean washrooms outside the arrival halls, so too a decent restaurant for those who come to receive their guests. At least some sitting arrangements outside the arrival halls would be highly recommended necessity. There is a whole of mafia functioning as far as facilities at the airport is concerned with heads of the respective departments playing their significant role in the present mess that prevails to give Goa and Goans a bad name.
8. All encroachments by the roadside should be cleared on war-footing.
9. Implement some code of conduct for all tourists by displaying the signboards at prominent locations.
I cannot visualise our State government will ever undertake such corrective measures as mentioned above to boost the tourism industry. Instead they will only encourage the uninvited visitors or we may call them thugs that have already entered Goa by trains of late from Bihar which will only further aggravate and threaten the Goans’ identity.
