PANJIM: The tourism stakeholders of Goa have warned of the deteriorating fear factor of the Police in Goa due to which the locals as well as the tourists are misbehaving and incidents like knife attack on a tourist in Anjuna is occurring.
The stakeholders also believe that the state may have lost a great opportunity of rebranding itself as a quality tourism destination.
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At the same time the quality of tourists have also dripped leading to incidents of bad behaviour by them.
Lyndon Alves, tourism professional said, “There is no fear of law or police today among the tourists and locals. People take things in their hands.”
“The locals especially know all the MLAs, sarpanchas and call up police to bypass trouble,” Alves said.
“Goa has lost an opportunity of rebranding tourism to attract high-end tourists after Covid. We have lost the quality of tourists that we had and could have received. Are we showcasing Goa correctly? Only because of weddings and conferences, Goa is doing well today. We don’t have a product to offer except for sun and sand,” he added.
“The only reputation we are earning is of drugs and of fights in Goa,” Alves added.
Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) President, Nilesh Shah said, “The government is expected to be strict with law breakers. We need to understand why the tourists have a ‘sab kuch chalta hai’ attitude in Goa.”
“We have been talking of tourist police for a long time. It needs to take shape soon. The action against touts was also supposed to be continuous, but it also stopped recently,” Shah said.
Former President of TTAG, Savio Messias said, “The police force is totally politicised. A person stopped for violations of traffic rules, puts pressure on police to avoid paying fines. As tourism increases, these cases will happen and given the fact that drugs and alcohol are freely available in Goa, violent incidents are bound to happen,” he said.
