With Goa being the best tourist spot in India, tourism is one of the mainstays of Goa’s economy. It is estimated that the tourism industry directly contributes approximately 16% of income to the state's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and it provides employment to nearly 35% of the state's population. Considering the importance of tourism in the state, there has been a huge focus on increasing tourism in the state. But how did Goa’s present-day Government really upsurge it? A close look at the data is required to make the right judgment.
The numbers indicate that the BJP government has tripled tourism from 2012 to 2019. The number of tourist arrivals in 2011 was 26 lakhs. By 2019, in just 8 years, it grew this number to 80 lakhs per year! In contrast, in all the 7 years of Congress government till 2011, the total number of tourists didn’t even grow by 10%. This is because the govt has made a conscious effort to boost tourism to non-beach locations, by focussing on historical sites, eco-tourism, and agro-tourism.
In Goa – only BJP has delivered huge tourism growth in the past 20 years. For e.g., there has been a huge rise in the number of hotels and beds. After 2012, the government added 1300 hotels and paying guest rooms and 30,000 beds.
Contribution to GSDP:Pre-pandemic, the tourism sector was flourishing and this can be seen from the increase in associated GSDP figures. Trade, hotels, restaurants, homeownership, and professional services – both of these have grown and more than doubled from 2012-13 to 2019-20 under the BJP government. Moreover, as a subsequent by-product of flourishing tourism in Goa, the real estate and professional services sector also grew more than twice over the last 8 years, as can be seen in the below figure.
Govt expenditure on tourismAccording to the stats from 2004-05, there was a declining curve in the funds allocated to tourism hitting a low of 0.12% of GSDP. However, the budgetary allocation saw a sharp increase, rising to 0.18% of GSDP in 2012-13. From this year onwards, the budgetary allocation didn’t go down below 0.18% and consistently remained in the 0.20%-0.26% range. The year 2015-16 was an aberration, which saw a high amount of 0.4% of GSDP allocated to tourism with expenditure on Tourism of around Rs 21,979 Lakhs.
Impact of COVID on tourism
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit India, there was no sector that was not affected. Similarly, it had impacted tourism worldwide as well as in India. However, the BJP government implemented several initiatives on tourist safety, which allowed it to reopen as early as July 2020, one of the first in India. Goa became the first State in India to get the WTTC's "Safe Travels Stamp" (World Travel & Tourism Council) and the state was able to eliminate do away with obligatory testing and quarantine.
Recovery of Domestic Tourism
With several initiatives being introduced by the state govt for the tourism sector, there was a relative recovery in the number of domestic tourists visiting the state from October 2020. In November 2020, there were 6.9 Lakh domestic tourists compared to 9.3 Lakhs in 2019, which is a significant recovery compared to the past months.
In fact, Jan-Feb-March of 2021, saw the highest number of domestic tourists ever! An astounding 14.62 lakh domestic tourists visited Goa during this time, an astounding 42% higher than the previous high of 10.28 lakhs in Jan-Feb-March of 2019.
The New Initiatives
In order to promote Goa as an ideal tourist destination, several initiatives and tourism infrastructure projects were undertaken to improve the facilities for the tourists and the carrying capacity of the State. The major key initiatives in the field of tourism with a brief description is mentioned in the below table:
It should be noted that in 2020, Goa has been ranked number one in the “Best performing State in Tourism” category by India Today as per their “Best State of India” ranking. As the state is popular destination, Goa was awarded the National Award 2017-18 under the category of Best State for Adventure Tourism by the Government of India, Ministry of Tourism, and also the Best Destination Leadership Award 2019 by WTTCII at New Delhi. In 2019, for the third consecutive year, Goa bagged the National Tourism Award for Comprehensive Development of Tourism.