While Russian tourists have already made Goa their holiday home, the Goa Tourism Ministry now wants to woo Germans, French and Dutch tourists to the State known for its beach tourism.
In a representation made to Union Tourism Minister Chiranjeevi earlier this month, State Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar has demanded a visa-on-arrival facility for nationals from these four countries.“This will definitely help to increase the foreign tourists’ arrival to India,” Parulekar has said in his communication to Chiranjeevi.
Parulekar has expressed a fear that with Sri lanka and other countries in South East Asia offering such travel concessions, Goa would lose tourists to these countries.“Developing tourist destinations like Sri lanka and South East Asia are offering free visa-on-arrival facility as they feel the economic benefit of increased numbers offsets the loss on account of not charging any visa fees,” Goa’s Tourism Minister said.
“There is, therefore, a need to rationalise visa-on-arrival fees or ideally to waive off the fees,” he further said, requesting the Central Government to rationalise visa processing so that tourism in India benefits.Citing the example of Australia which allows e-visa processing for as little as 19 Australian dollars, Parulekar said: “This is granted online within 24 hours and can be presented at Immigration to facilitate and speed up the process of clearance of tourist using the visa-on-arrival facility”.
Parulekar also sought great exposure for Goa in the Union Tourism Ministry’s marketing and promotion campaign all over the world and especially in key source destinations. “It is observed that Goa does not figure in most of this audio-visual and print advertisement campaigns,” he said.
Claiming that the State Government does not have adequate resources to undertake promotional campaigns in international markets, Parulekar has requested that Goa should be accorded its “rightful place in the advertisements undertaken by the Ministry of Tourism so that international tourist arrival in Goa can receive a big boost in the days to come”.
Goa annually attracts 2.5 million tourists out of which half a million are foreigners, mainly from Russia and the UK.