Goa is gradually losing its allure as a favoured destination among foreign tourists. It now needs to change its basic offering beyond sun-and-beach to win them back
Jan van Djik looks weather beaten. It looks as if he spent a good part of his 67 years strolling on Calangute beach. The Dutchman has been following a 20-year ritual of visiting Goa twice a year. Except that over the last few years, he has been spending less and less time there. “Doing a lot of travel in other parts, especially in the North… Benares.”
How the Cookie Crumbled
Visa is a pain point too. In the last few years, stricter visa regulations have also had unintended consequences for Goa tourism. A Swedish tour operator for Goa says, on conditions of anonymity, that it takes almost two months to get a visa for someone from Sweden to come to Goa, whereas in Phuket (Indonesia), Vietnam and Malaysia, one gets visa on arrival. “It is not surprising that almost 26 charter planes from Scandinavian countries are coming to Phuket every week. Earlier, they used to come to Goa,” she says. Along with still-expensive hotels, even after tariffs were cut once the slowdown set in, visa expenses make holidays in Goa costlier by 600 euros or 500 pounds.
(This story appears in the 19 March, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)