Tourist arrivals in state dropped by 57%

Panaji: Tourist arrivals in the state dropped by 57 per cent in pandemic year 2020-21, according to latest information from the government.

Providing data on the impact of coronavirus on domestic and foreign tourist visitors, the government on Friday said that total arrivals dropped to 33.2 lakh tourists in 2020-21, as against 78 lakh tourists in 2019-20.

The worst impact of the pandemic was on international arrivals as only 33,215 foreign tourists visited the state in 2020-21, compared to 8.58 lakh in the previous year, said the government.

Meanwhile in the current year, during the first three months, April-June period, total 1.24 lakh tourists visited the state, comprising 1.22 lakh domestic and 2,460 foreign tourists, revealed the government.

Tourism Minister Manohar ‘Babu’Ajgaonkar, replying to a question raised by Ramakrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar, Marcaim MLA, said that for development of tourism the department of tourism recently notified the Goa Tourism Policy 2020 and further prepared Goa Tourism Master Plan 2020-2025 and Vision Document 2020-2025.

The policy documents aim to, “Make Goa the most preferred destination around the year for high-spending tourists in India by 2024, and a world-class international tourism destination by 2030,” he said.

Explaining the methodology of estimating the tourist arrivals in the state, he said that the department of tourism relies on different data samples for estimation of domestic and foreign arrivals and further extrapolates the figures on the basis of past administrative records.

The department compiles the statistics on the basis of data received from hotels and guest houses, railways, Kadamba Transport Corporation, airport authority, immigration, charter flights and cruise ships.

“The data reported by the above mentioned sources cannot be taken 100 per cent for estimation of tourist statistics since all persons are not tourists and many locals travel for employment or for some other purpose. Further, the count of tourists arriving and leaving on the same day or those seeking lodging with friends, relatives, etc cannot be traced for correct estimation of tourist arrivals,” he said.

According to the government, considering the geographical structure of the state wherein there are multiple entry and exit points, besides number of other modes of transport, multiple lodging opportunities, etc, the accurate estimation of tourist statistics in the state is not feasible.

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