PANJIM: Tourism Department’s unfruitful international trips seem to be a result of non-professional delegates who are “rewarded” by being a part of these business events.
While the department is already reeling under controversy on junkets, this revelation on the recent travel marts and road shows could further leave the officials red-faced. Details with Herald reveal that people with the right expertise are left out and instead the back office staff is added to the official delegation.
The government delegations attended travel marts at four foreign destinations and road shows across 11 places in a span of just two months. What’s also interesting is that some of these trips saw attendance of head clerk and officials from the accounts as well as finance department.
In one of the international events held at Moscow from March 12-14, the official delegation was accompanied by a head clerk of the tourism department. The three-member delegation comprised Deputy General Manager of the Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) Ninfa D’Silva, Assistant Tourism Officer Chitra Vengurlekar and Head Clerk Diya Gaude.
Likewise, the road shows at Oman, Iran and Qatar from April 17-26 led by Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar saw GTDC MD Nikhil Desai, and Deputy Director (Accounts) Sailee Amonkar whose designation is not at all concerned with the promotional strategy of Goa Tourism. Another road show at Amsterdam and Hungary from April 7-15 had General Manager of the Finance Department D B Sawant accompanying his higher up ATO Jayesh Kankonkar.
Barely few events saw relevant officers like General Manager (marketing) Gavin Dias and OSD (tour) Arvind Kutkar added to the team.
“These are business-to-business events where officers from the marketing or promotion team have to be present so that Goa’s tourism can be advertised professionally. However, we always find that every team has at least one member who is not required to be a part of it. We have learnt that these delegates are randomly selected to travel abroad despite zero experience in marketing,” said a source close to the department.
One of the stakeholders, a reputed event management agency attached with the tourism department disclosed that some foreign travel agents try to connect with the department after the concerned tour but non-professionals attending the events play a spoilsport.
“Certain travel companies try to reach out to the tourism officials back in Goa after the events, but since the contact details are of the staffs who are not concerned with the promotional or marketing team, this type of communication is ignored. As such, the international companies too don’t show their interest. This is another reason for tourism drawback,” he said.
It remains to be seen if the upcoming road shows scheduled till July have attendance of any non professional members.
