<p>They came here in large numbers last year, packing into boutique hotels, sightseeing on hired motorcycles and keeping beach shacks like Brito’s at Baga buzzing right through the season.<br /><br />“Over 25 per cent of our arrivals last year were high spending young Indians, many of them drop in practically every week-end to chill out,” says Travel and Tourism Association of Goa spokesman Ralph De Souza who acknowledges the enormous potential of this segment for Goa’s diversifying market. <br /><br />Foreign arrivals too shot up by 17 per cent to touch 4.4 lakh, Goa’s Tourism Director Swapnil Naik said. After the post 26/11 slump, the 2010 recovery has surpassed expectations, he said. Goa received 2.6 million tourists last year. Though charters recorded a huge spurt from 690 flights in 2009 to 899 in 2010-2011 bringing in 1.7 lakh tourists, 50 per cent of them from Russia and other East European countries, direct charters no longer account for the bulk of foreign travellers to Goa.<br /><br />“Earlier, 80 per cent of foreign arrivals came on charters, no longer so. Goa already has the numbers, what it needs now is to concentrate on attracting the high end tourist,” says De Souza.<br /><br />Goa’s tourism related annual revenue is estimated at between Rs 1,000 to 1,200 crore. Nearly a third of the state’s population is directly involved in tourism business in the peak season. Yet it has taken the government 10 years to reconstitute the high-powered committee on tourism.<br /></p>
<p>They came here in large numbers last year, packing into boutique hotels, sightseeing on hired motorcycles and keeping beach shacks like Brito’s at Baga buzzing right through the season.<br /><br />“Over 25 per cent of our arrivals last year were high spending young Indians, many of them drop in practically every week-end to chill out,” says Travel and Tourism Association of Goa spokesman Ralph De Souza who acknowledges the enormous potential of this segment for Goa’s diversifying market. <br /><br />Foreign arrivals too shot up by 17 per cent to touch 4.4 lakh, Goa’s Tourism Director Swapnil Naik said. After the post 26/11 slump, the 2010 recovery has surpassed expectations, he said. Goa received 2.6 million tourists last year. Though charters recorded a huge spurt from 690 flights in 2009 to 899 in 2010-2011 bringing in 1.7 lakh tourists, 50 per cent of them from Russia and other East European countries, direct charters no longer account for the bulk of foreign travellers to Goa.<br /><br />“Earlier, 80 per cent of foreign arrivals came on charters, no longer so. Goa already has the numbers, what it needs now is to concentrate on attracting the high end tourist,” says De Souza.<br /><br />Goa’s tourism related annual revenue is estimated at between Rs 1,000 to 1,200 crore. Nearly a third of the state’s population is directly involved in tourism business in the peak season. Yet it has taken the government 10 years to reconstitute the high-powered committee on tourism.<br /></p>
