Goa hopeful of tourist surge from Arabian countries

Panaji: The state should see a surge in tourists from Arabian countries in the coming season going by the good response to Goa tourism’s efforts at the recent Dubai tourism mart, tourism minister Dilip Parulekar told TOI on Tuesday.
Parulekar said that Goa has been participating in the Arabian travel mart every year but this May the response was particularly good from the Arabian travel and tourism industry, the representatives of which shared space with Goa tourism in the Dubai travel mart.
Parulekar said citizens of Arabian countries regularly visit Goa as “free independent travelers” (FIT) and for medical treatment. Arab nationals visit Goa for specialized procedures like open heart surgery which costs around 5 lakh here. The same procedure costs close to 15 lakh in Arabian countries and even higher in Europe. So they prefer to come to India and Goa, Parulekar said.
Presently, there is very good connectivity to Goa from Oman, Dubai and Sharjah in UAE, Kuwait and Doha in Qatar. The journey is only about three and half hours. So Goa should get a good number of footfalls from Arabian countries, Parulekar said.
In a way, this will help offset the reduced number of Russians coming to the state, the tourism minister said, explaining that confrontations between Russians and Goa’s tourist taxi operators provoked the Russian embassy to send a negative report on Goa tourism to Russia. That was one reason for the reduced number of tourists from Russia and the other reason was the weakening of the ruble, he said.
Among other things, the e-visa initiative last year has boosted tourism to some extent, he said.