PANAJI
Amidst the recent debate over the purported decline, both qualitative and quantitative, of Goa's tourism brand, a leading global consultant Horwath HTL India, has partly laid the blame on tourists themselves in its 2024 Market Review report.
Even as the report claims that "Goa is the best and main beach destination of India, by a long way", the consultant's India Hotel Market Review 2024 states that a vast majority of those going to Goa use the beaches in an improper manner.
"In some ways therefore, Goa is a victim of its own success. Its casual and easy-going lifestyle has been misinterpreted as a license to be improper and disrespectful in behaviour, showing all the negative effects of over-tourism," the report said.
In an objective take of the Goa tourism market's performance, the Horwath HTL report said hotel supply rose rapidly with 3,300 rooms added in just the last five years (2019-2024) and 2,000 of these added rooms were in 2023 and 2024.
The report also refers to a "different type of crowding and cultural dilution to the point where Goa ceases to resemble what Goa is popular for" due to the presence of multiple homestays and villas, besides real estate projects which attract investment from outside, mainly north and western India.
It states that the failure is on many counts with greed being the lead common thread and warned that corrections must be made for the long-term good even if attitudinally and commercially harsh for the short-term.
On the economics, the report however paints a better picture saying the upper luxury segment of hotels and resorts got 70.5% occupancy, the highest in the last 10 years with healthy numbers in revenues.
Other segments, including the upper mid-segment and the middle segment saw marginal declines in occupancy but gains in revenues, the Horwath HTL report states adding a kicker for the way forward: "We need to be careful that God-made Goa is not killed by crowding, carelessness and casual behaviour."
