Accused by Goa’s Roman Catholic Church as well as politicians of being boorish, drug-craving, adulterous and ghetto-minded, the image of the typical Israeli tourist to Goa is all set for a makeover.
Goa, the ‘westernised’ State on the west coast of India which continues to be a destination for Israel’s young and party-savvy men and women, many of whom are often seeking psychotropic drugs, will now see a different breed of Israelis visiting the State.Israeli tourists in Goa and elsewhere in India, according to the country’s Consul General in Mumbai David Akov, will now be more of families and elderly couples than those seeking to binge away memories of a compulsory stint in the armed forces.
David Akov, who was in the State recently, further said that Israelis visiting would enhance the profile of Goa.
“The changing profile of Israeli tourists will change that naturally, because we have more families and people who are older in age. They look for a different kind of tourism. We already see it changing in our consulate in Mumbai. There are a lot less problems than existed before,” Akov said.
Over 40,000 Israelis visit India every year and according to Akov, a big chunk of them eventually make it to Goa.
“I can tell you most Israeli tourists who come to India, come to Goa, because as I said Goa is well known in Israel and people want to see Goa,” he said. Since the mid-eighties, beaches in north Goa away from the crowded Calangute Baga stretch like that of Anjuna, Ozrant, Vagator, Chapora, Arambol were well known haunts for young Israeli tourists, in pursuit of a lazy, beach holiday and a spot of drugs, in case of many.
locals even learnt the Hebrew word ‘balagan’ which loosely translates as trouble, whome they would yell at inebriated Israelis.It was no surprise that their lifestyle of living lin ghetto like clusters, keeping to themselves and not being a huge benefit to the local industry was frowned upon.
Some years back a Church-funded NGO even published a book ‘Claiming the right to say no: A study of Israeli tourist behaviour and patterns in Goa’, in which 11 seminarians, priests-in-making, ‘documented’ the lifestyle of the Israeli tourists in Goa.“In Vagator, there is a beach which is called as ‘Israeli beach’ just below the 9 Bar. Non-Israelis are frightened to come over to this place,” writes Mario Fernandes.
In another section Brother Manuel says, “Can you imagine young boys killing people. They (Israelis) go mad while in the services. The government sends these people to relaxation hubs. One of them is Goa”.Even former union minister of state for external affairs Eduardo Faleiro has consistently alleged that young Israeli tourists are bad news for Goa.
“There is abundant evidence that Israeli tourists cause enormous damage to the social and cultural fabric of our state. They do not contribute to the Goan economy. They want to derive maximum benefit from minimum expenditure,” Faleiro claims.Meanwhile, Israel too has tried to woo Catholic Goans to Israel as pilgrims on a tour to the Holy land.“We definitely are trying to reach out to those who are interested in (travelling) to Israel. I think some of them because of religious reasons. If they are Christians, of course Jerusalem and Israel are the cradle of Christianity and we have an office to promote tourism in our consulate,” Akov admitss.
The state which has a 26 per cent Catholic population is an easy market for the Israelis. In October last year, deputy chief minister Francis D’Souza led a 20-member delegation to the Middle-Eastern state, along with a delegation comprising of travel and tourism delegation, to establish contact with tourism industry stakeholders there.
“Part of the efforts are to try and bring this information to Goa and to Christians all over India generally about the possibility of Israel (as a tourism destination). It is a great experience for a tourist to visit Israel because of the multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-layered history of this country. There is so much to see in Israel,” he added.