PANJIM: The tourism department and hotel industry flayed taxi operators for its “mobocracy” and for putting tourists to inconvenience all across the state on Monday.
Except for yellow and black taxis that operated at Dabolim airport, hotels in north and south Goa had to make arrangements for transporting tourists to and from Dabolim and for tours, on account of non-availability of tourists taxis.
The tourism department deplored the one day stir by taxi operators and feared that this would derail the negotiations between taxi operators and government. The hotel industry felt that taxi operators have taken tourism and tourists for granted and said that today’s strike and violent incidents at several places has proved that taxi operators have been holding Goa and tourists to ransom.
“Their behavior today is to be condemned and they will lose out on a fair deal that the government was working out for them,” said a north Goa hotelier who is part of the government set up negotiating committee.
“Tourists had to fend for themselves and were put to great hardships due to non-availability of taxis,” said another hotelier adding that many tourists had to even use hired motorcycles to commute to the airport.
The Travel and Tourism Association of Goa president Francisco Braganza said, “ Staff of tour operators were beaten up, vehicles damaged, punctured and it was a simply horrible day for tourists in Goa.”
Braganza said, “It is better to stop tourism and to stop promoting it if this is going to be the end result of much hard work for boosting tourism,” he said adding that tourist taxi operators are literally destroying tourism and the name of Goa as a tourist destination.
The TTAG was Monday flooded with reports of attacks against tourists, vehicles and hotel staff and described the day as a black day for tourism in Goa.
A hotelier who is TTAG member said that the Goa tourism department should cancel the GITM scheduled in April. “What is the point of all this tourism promotion if people involved in tourism business itself are destroying it.”
