Alexandre Moniz
Barbosa
PANJIM: While its efforts at regenerative tourism may be getting the State of Goa applauded at the national level and tourism stakeholders are celebrating World Tourism Day, there is a paradigm shift occurring on the ground that is possibly going unnoticed by the authorities and the people.
Recent events, specifically the numerous luxury apartment complexes that are springing up across the State, are turning out to be a reflection of Goa’s tourism, a new form of tourism that has been termed residential tourism. In simpler terms, it can be said that the tourists came, saw and stayed in Goa.
This is a form of tourism wherein people buy properties in a popular tourism destination for temporary or permanent residences. They either use these as their permanent residences or purchase them purely as investment, expecting a return by renting them out.
A scan of online advertisements for real estate in Goa led to numerous promotions offering land, apartments, villas in the State, that were all aimed at buyers from outside the State. There were also a number of articles that promised a return on investment.
Not an entirely new phenomenon, as there have been cases documented of tourism destinations over time turning into residential or retirement tourism, across the world, Goa appears to be one of those destinations that is also making that shift, without actually realising it.
And again, in Goa it may not be entirely new, but merely overlooked. Vishvesh Kandolkar in the paper Consuming Goa Portuguesa: Vacationing in a Postcolonial Colony, published in 2020 wrote, ‘Goa not only figures in the national political economy as a tourist destination, but more recently as a capitalist venture, marking India’s turn to neoliberalism through real estate projects in the post-liberalization period.’
Residential tourism is an issue that Goa will possibly have to struggle with, especially as this can have long term effects on land utilisation and demographics. According to studies, residential tourism is mainly focussed on land sale, where land becomes a source of investment and speculation. This in turn can lead to displacement of the people and their exclusion.
Goa’s protests at the local level, wherein affected villagers are fighting residential projects, is in essence a pan-Goa issue arising from a tourism fallout that is going unnoticed.