Pre-bookings are vital
The pandemic seems to have forced Goa Tourism to do some house-cleaning and relook at tackling short and longterm issues such as curbing illegal hotels and improving data collection.
Menino D’souza, Director, Department of Tourism, Government of Goa, said during a recent webinar that his department will be looking at tackling fundamental issues both in the shortterm and long-term. “One good thing that is coming out of COVID-19 that we will also adopt for the future is making pre-bookings of hotels mandatory for tourists entering the state. We are looking at maintaining this system to curb mass tourism that Goa is attracting,” he said. D’souza also brought up the issue of collecting statistics. “Currently, we don’t have an accurate data for tourist numbers. The process we are following now is not correct. According to that, we have 80 lakh tourists coming to Goa every year. Figures show that we receive more than a crore of tourists into Goa. So we are putting a new software in place to resolve this,” he shared.
Underlining the need to curb illegal businesses, D’souza said that his department has proposed an amendment to make the process of registering easier. “We need to protect our brand and profits need to seep down. But if demand is not met legally, it is met illegally and rightful
Illegal hotels are a security risk as well as dent the state treasury. We have now proposed only 2-3 NOCs for hotels”
businesses suffer. Illegal hotels are also a security risk as well as dent the state treasury. We have now proposed to have only two to three NOCs for hotels. This will surely plug the loophole,” he explained. Agreeing to this point was Serafino Cota, President, Small & Medium Hotels Associations. He said, “There is a huge issue of illegal hotels in Goa. They are not registered and all that revenue is lost. It is a very high number and it includes illegal beach shacks. We suggest the tourism department to come up with a policy for homestays that have four or more rooms with the owner staying there. They also need to be registered with Goa Tourism as it is very expensive to set up even a small hotel. Such illegal hotels cause a huge leakage in the system of more than 70 per cent or more revenue.”