There’s much jubilation in Goa. This week, the coastal State’s tourist season kicked off on an optimistic note with the first two charters from Russia landing on Goan shores.
As the steel birds swooped down at the Mopa airport’s tarmac, the merry chorus of “Foreigners are returning to Goa in big numbers after brief hiatus” floated through the tiny State.
It’s set off the buzzer on many questions. Are we going to see foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) into Goa swing back to the pre-pandemic figure of close to over nine lakh tourists per day?
What does it mean for the tourism stakeholders? How dependent is Goa’s hospitality industry on earnings from foreign tourists today? Are foreign travellers still bigger spenders than domestic travellers in the tourism industry? So many more queries race through the mind.
Visitors from Bangladesh constituted 19.35 per cent of the State’s total FTAs, followed by US (17.96 per cent), UK (10.47 per cent), Canada (5.91 per cent) Australia (4.67 per cent), Russian Federation (2.83 per cent), Sri Lanka (2.74 per cent), Malaysia (2.73 per cent), Germany (2.48 per cent) and France (2.30 per cent).
A tete-a-tete with the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) president Jack Sukhija offered some insight and perspective. Two of his statements that stood out were “The number of foreign visitors is likely to double this year” and “Domestic tourists’ spending per day in certain segments has overtaken foreign tourists’ spending per day”.
To be clear, spending per foreign tourist still continues to be higher than spending per domestic tourist. This is because foreign visitors usually stay for a longer duration. A report brought out by the Central tourism ministry titled India Tourism Statistics 2023 shows that the average duration of stay by FTAs in India in 2022 was 27.44 days.
As against this, domestic tourists’ average duration of stay at an Indian tourist destination would be 2-6 days. There are two interesting aspects emerging from data crunching of foreign tourist arrivals into Goa. One, the number of FTAs still remains woefully below the pre-pandemic number at over four lakh (compared to 9.37 lakh before pandemic). The State may take some time to catch up with it.
Two, the profile of foreign tourists arriving into the State is a curious mix. If you look at the data put out by the German online data gathering platform Statista, the 4.03-lakh FTAs into Goa in 2023 was dominated by Bangladeshis.
Visitors from Bangladesh constituted 19.35 per cent of the State’s total FTAs, followed by US (17.96 per cent), UK (10.47 per cent), Canada (5.91 per cent) Australia (4.67 per cent), Russian Federation (2.83 per cent), Sri Lanka (2.74 per cent), Malaysia (2.73 per cent), Germany (2.48 per cent) and France (2.30 per cent).
As per the Indian tourism ministry data for 2023, the two main purposes of Bangladeshi travellers are leisure holiday and recreation (64.8 per cent) and medical treatment (25.6 per cent). Around 78 per cent of tourists from Bangladesh travel to India by land and 22 per cent by air.
Visitors from US (37.4 per cent), UK (37.2 per cent), Canada (52.2 per cent) and Australia (44 per cent) largely comprise the Indian diaspora. These travellers make their trips to India to meet up with their family, friends and relatives, and so their visits may not translate into substantial revenues for the State and the hospitality industry.
Interestingly, Goa has seen an influx in migrations from Nepal. Nepalis usually travel to the State for business and professional purposes. According to tourism ministry’s report, purpose of travel of 99.6 per cent of Nepalis to India last year was unknown.
Foreign travellers mostly patronise the budget and mid-segments for longer stays. However, they cannot be brushed off as they significantly bring in forex revenues for the State and eventually end up spending more than domestic tourists on a single trip to Goa. And, therefore, even today they are the peanut butter to many hospitality players’ jelly.
Sukhija, who is adequately clued in on the happenings in the State’s tourism sector, authoritatively claims that spending in high-end segments like the luxury and super-luxury properties is dominated by domestic tourists.
Foreign travellers mostly patronise the budget and mid-segments for longer stays. However, they cannot be brushed off as they significantly bring in forex revenues for the State and eventually end up spending more than domestic tourists on a single trip to Goa. And, therefore, even today they are the peanut butter to many hospitality players’ jelly.
Now, one has to wait and watch to gauge in which direction the winds carrying the foreign visitors into the State blow.