‘Why is Goa dirty’, foreign travel agents pop the question

TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Why is the place dirty? This seemingly innocuous question, popped to the Herald reporter on the sidelines of a meeting of Armenian tour operators, has the potential to be the biggest party pooper for Goa’s tourism.
Anna Sargsyan, reservation manager of Air Arabia said that Goa as a place was wonderful and she felt safe here. The five star hotels were fantastic and then came the big BUT. “I have reservations with the level of cleanliness at certain places. We went to the Mangueshi temple and it was beautiful but it was sad to see people littering the place. In Armenia we would never do that. We have Indians living in Armenia and they don’t behave like this”.
Asked if Armenians would come over, she said that her countrymen liked to travel a lot and since Russians came to Goa in large numbers she said Armenians would also come here. When asked when the first flights from Armenia would land in Goa, she said they were looking at December 31 when a large number of people usually flew out. The rates in Goa she said were good for Armenians and she did not see why the place would not get popular in Armenia. And then came the BUT again. “But people should not litter”.
As the search for new markets continues unabated for the Goa Tourism department, an absolute zero tolerance for litter and waste is fundamental to this project.
A delegation of 24 tour operators from Kazakhstan and Armenia are presently in the State for seven days on a familiarisation trip conducted in conjunction with Air Arabia. The 14 tour operators from Kazakhstan and ten from Armenia visited various hotels, beaches and other places of tourist interest. In a related development the Union Minister of State for Tourism and Culture Shripad Naik announced the project for construction of a new passenger terminal at Mormugao Port Trust to promote cruise tourism.    
Nikhil Desai MD GTDC said this visit was an effort to expand the target base of countries which were sending tourists to Goa. Armenia, he said was a new country for Goa and the tour operators would now have to return to Yerevan and promote Goa as another destination Armenians could visit. This visit was part of a mega campaign with over 65 travel agents visiting Goa. Another delegation from Ukraine he revealed was visiting the State on September 20. Speaking to the Herald, Paruyr Aleksayan of B2Btour said that people in his country knew about Delhi but they were not aware of Goa.  
Nikhil Desai said Goa had to be very aggressive since if they stopped marketing themselves they would drop out of consciousness and with new destinations aggressively marketing themselves they had to fight every step of the way.