Colva tourism stakeholders feeling impact of Thomas Cook UK collapse

MARGAO: Although the tourism season has started and charter flights have started arriving from Russia and recently from the United Kingdom, there is hardly any impact on Colva where not many tourists are seen and the tourism activity is yet to take off.

Russians who arrive on the charter flights to Goa are known to be very frugal and generally survive on the package that they have booked which includes their accommodation and food and even tours and hence the locals involved in tourism industry hardly benefit from them.

Sita Antao who owns a travel agency at Colva says they cannot expect any business from the Russians except for the stray few who may wish to go to Murdeshwar where they book their tour and arrange the taxi for them.

“The collapse of Thomas Cook UK has really affected us and though TUI has now started operating charters from UK how successful it will be remains a question mark,” she said.

However, the main reason why Colva wears a deserted look is because the beach shacks have not yet come up as the shack allotment was done recently and payments are being accepted at present following which the shacks will be erected.

Domingos Crasto who has been allotted a shack at Colva said it will take at least a fortnight to erect the shack and till then they have to suffer losses as the staff has reported for duty and they have to feed the staff besides paying them their salary even though they get no income absolutely.

He lamented that the Tourism Department is now issuing licences for shacks in private properties first thus giving them a head start in the business. “Private shacks have started business while we are still waiting for our shacks to be demarcated for us,” he said.

The Russian charter tourists do not benefit the hotels too as many of them prefer staying in the rooms of the locals, which have been redesigned only to rent out to tourists.

Hotelier, Snowkon Gonsalves said the Russian charter tourists do not help tourism trade much in Colva. “I used to get a lot of guests from Thomas Cook UK that has now folded and they are finding it difficult to get replacements as the prices too have gone up now,” he said while predicting that there could be a bleak season this year.