As the Covid curve has started flattening down with almost negligible death rate, the traveler have started moving out finding some exotic holiday destinations, and Goa remains on the top of the bucket list of Domestic as well as foreign travellers.
The domestic tourists prefers the Kashmir and Himachal in India, while UAE and Maldives comes in their overseas vacation plans. The foreigners still prefer Goa over all these destinations.
One of the major criteria that tourists look while making a travel plans is the safety and hassle free travel and Goa gives them both the things.
Some tourists stay in Goa en-route to Himachal and Kashmir, while others make their plans only for Goa. This year the foreign charters will commence the travel from the 1st week of November as the Government has opened the doors for them from 15th October onwards.
Travel During The Lockdown
The domestic travellers did not stop even during the Covid lockdown. According to the report published in the Bangalore Mirror one of the local travel agents ‘U Enjoy’ had confirmed that, he made bookings for many customers for Goa, Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh during the lockdown period.
According to him people got bored sitting at home for more than one and half year and they wanted to move out to any available destination and Goa always remained opened even during the lockdown.
“We offer trips to other places too, but there were takers for these four. But lockdown has been bad for us. Earlier, we used to send at least 10-15 families to different places but now we hardly get 3-5 families wanting to travel,” said Chandra Mouli from U Enjoy Travels.
According to Mouli, the most preferred international destinations are Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia as those who could afford to travel aboard preferred these destinations over the domestic one and the UAE remains remains the last choice since they opened their borders little late.
Now that the restrictions have been lifted in most of the places including UAE, and many European countries, people have started applying for the visa. The rules keep changing time to time that sometimes confuses the travellers and even created hassle many a times.
“There are times when the rules change in the midnight for some countries and customers had to return from the airport. There is also issue of cancellation fees and all the other procedures, so people are giving these places a pass for now,” he says.
International Travel Scenario
Although the travel restrictions have been lifted in most of the places in India including Goa but it is not same with the foreign countries as many of them have not yet allowed the entry of the tourists and most of the businesses dependent on overseas business may still have to wait little longer as the situation improves.
Some of the European countries and places in UAE have opened their borders for the business travellers and up market tourists but major Chuck of the places are still keeping their boundaries sealed out of the fear of another wave.
There are limited access to the students and business class who travel to USA and Canada. Many Indians have their businesses running in these countries. “Currently the travel visas available only to the students and business class for Canada and US. The students travel to Siberia where they do the RT-PCR test and then head to the desired destinations,” said the travel agent.
The Destination Goa
Goa always remains the most preferred destinations and from the September onwards the state government made the travel restrictions less cumbersome making it easier for the people to travel into the state. Most of the hotels in the state have been fully booked for the entire season.
The Planet Hollywood Resort, situated in the south Goa have been booked in advance from October till end January having no more scope for the new bookings.
The chartered flights will commence from the beginning of November followed by the complete opening up from 15th November as stated by the CM of Goa.
Goa gets more than 6 million tourists from all over the world and last two years had been very challenging for the Tourism Industry in Goa but now with the reopening of the borders, the situation will come back to the normal.
The stakeholders of the tourism industry is very positive about the future of the tourism industry in Goa. According to the president of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) Goa will accomplish the target of 92% chartered flights this tourism season.
“It is largely due to our requests that the Central government decided to allow foreigners to arrive in Goa. The announcement ahead of the season will allow us to plan in advance and allow charter companies to book slots at the Goa airport,” He said.
Conclusion
The tourism season is bound to boom this years first due to the 100% vaccination status in the state and second due to the low restrictions which will prompt the tourists to book the flights to Goa.
The tourism season that will begin in the month of November this year will have the Russians and UK nationals coming down in the chartered flights and soon the doors will be opened up for the rest of the world.
