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Goa Tourism

Goa to become the next educational Hub

“Goa has the potential to be a prime education hub and should be known as the ‘Boston of India’. The State has the right mix of stakeholders who can enable this change,” said Bharat Vir Wanchoo, Governor of Goa. Speaking at the first Higher Education Summit organised by CII in association with the State Government, Goa’s Governor also emphasised the need for training and up scaling most faculties.

Eager to push the stakeholders out of their comfort zone, Shrinivas Dempo of Dempo Education Trust emphasised the need for improving research facility in the colleges and universities. Other speakers mentioned the dire need to revise the curriculum in most courses as it had been left unrevised for about 30 years. Academic autonomy was termed another important factor.

“Goa needs to develop an empowered cluster of autonomous colleges to improve its higher education system. Colleges can be given the power to recognize industry-linked training provided to students while undergoing a course. This will enable students to go out of the colleges becoming more employable. To give these powers to the university, the Goa Universitys Act will have to be revisited,” Nigavekar told Goa education officials.Former chairperson of University Grants Commission ( UGC) Arun Nigavekar interacted with education officials during his recent visit to Goa and has suggested that the state should prepare a cluster of autonomous colleges to improve delivery of higher education. The state government is considering Nigavekar’s suggestion of setting up a Goa higher education development corporation.

As one of the stakeholders, The Mitaroy Goa Heritage Homestay in Fontainhas, Panjim has been at the forefront of trying to promote education in the state, especially in the important area of tourism education. While tourism is one of the biggest sectors in the Goan economy, there are few schools and colleges that cater to tourism students. Most students are forced to study outside the state or lose out to better qualified graduates from other cities such as Bangalore, Mumbai or Delhi.

I have always believed that Goa needed to improve and expand its current tourism education offer. The tourism education sector in Goa needs to cater to three main segments:

1. Unskilled workers / students – This segment consists usually of school drop outs or low and unskilled workers who would like to work in the tourism industry. For this segment, basic courses such as ITI or 6 month courses in housekeeping, cooking and service are needed. Goa’s tourism industry has a huge requirement for low skilled workers for jobs in housekeeping, cooking and service.

2. Management cadre – The second most needed segment is that of management cadre. Special hotel management schools need to be set up in Goa to train highly educated students to manage hotels and other tourist businesses. Subjects such as hotel management, destination marketing and eTourism should be taught in these schools and colleges.

3. Tourism Researchers – Last but not least, there is a great requirement for academics and researchers in the field of tourism in Goa. As a PhD student myself, I am quite surprised at the lack of research conducted into the Goan Tourism field. Goa Tourism needs researchers and research scholars studying and working at Universities in Goa to put forth suggestions and recommendations based on scientific research that will help improve Goan Tourism.

It is time that the Goa Government and Goa’s Tourism Department sat together with the stakeholders in the tourism industry to chalk out a Tourism Education Masterplan for the next 20 years. Only then will Goan Tourism not only survive but prosper.

Goa Tourism, Sustainable Goa Tourism

Ethical tourism important in Goa: Catholic Church

The tourism industry has received some advice from a most unlikely quarter – Goa’s Catholic Church!

With over 25 percent of the state’s population being Roman Catholic, the Catholic Church has a significant sway in Goa, which also attracts over 2.6 million tourists annually. But until now, it has remained silent on important economical issues such as tourism.

The Catholic Church claimed that it was only the rich and the powerful that were hiving off profits earned by Goa’s multi-million dollar tourism industry, leaving virtually nothing for the local inhabitants of the state. Speaking at an annual reception in the Bishop’s House, Archbishop of Goa Reverend Filipe Neri Ferrao said the State Government and the Goa Tourism Department needed to pursue “ethical and holistic” tourism initiatives.

“Our people seem to be systematically dispossessed by the powerful and the rich, who see their own profits as being of higher value than the people of the land,” Ferrao said.”Our anxiety stems from the fact that too few of benefits seem to percolate down to the genuine holders of rights over tourism, that is, the original inhabitants of our coastal areas where the bulk of tourism happens.”

Although falling short of suggesting “concrete technical guidelines” to make tourism sustainable, Ferrao said the tourism industry should not only consider economic, but also ethical issues.

Focusing on the common man, Ferrao said that the common man should be allowed to run “small businesses along the coast in order to compensate for their displacement”. At the moment, it is extremely difficult for a local person with no influence to start his own business. But if Goa’s tourism is to become sustainable in the long run, it must change this.

Truly sustainable tourism is tourism that benefits not only the guest but also a large portion of local society. Instead, it is only the large multinational hotel corporations such as Marriott, Taj and Leela that are making huge profits, with little of the economic boom trickling down to the local population. Few big hotels employ locals, preferring to bring in staff from bigger cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. In addition, foreign based hotel chains repatriate all their profits back to their home countries, leaving little money in the state.

It is only when the economic benefits of tourism benefit all, especially the small businessman, that tourism will be seen in a positive light. And this call by the Catholic Church is but the first step.

 

Goa Events

Beach weddings take Goa by storm

Goa has always been a hot Honeymoon Destination but couples are suddenly deciding that it is also a great place to get married. And is there a more romantic setting to get married than at a Goan beach?

A spew of mega beach weddings are planned in Goa with already 10 beach weddings approved by the Goa Tourism department. Since beach weddings are considered “minor events” in Goa, all it takes to get permission is approval from the Goa Tourism Director and the payment of a fee of Rs. 5000 fee.

One of my close relatives got married in Goa recently and she was full of praise for the destination. While many people choose to get married in their home towns or cities, it has become quite the fashion to jet to Goa and get married there instead. Not just the couple and their families but relatives and friends make the trip too, often booking out the entire hotel.

That said, some couples prefer to stay at a different hotel than their friends and family. “We stayed at a small Homestay while our guests stayed at a big 5 star Hotel. We wanted to have our privacy and some time to ourselves” said the couple.

And it is not just the Goan beach that becoming a hot wedding destination but the Goan river as well. Goan ferry boats offer couples the once in a lifetime chance to get married on a boat. Larger than the usual ferry boats that transport locals across the Mandovi River and far more luxurious, these special ferry boats are big enough to hold between 50 to 100 people as well as a full fledged buffet and dance floor.

And as Goa becomes more and more popular as a wedding destination, you also have Wedding Planners who take care of the entire wedding hassle, leaving you free to enjoy your special day. All the girl has to do, it seems, is to get her man to pop the question!

Christmas in Goa

View from my Balcao: A special Christmas in Goa

My dad blogs from Goa…

Goa has always celebrated its Christmas with much gusto, ressurecting the traditional nostalgia with much revelry – read wine, song and a banquet fit for a king, in every home across this tiny, beach-state. Although the population of Goa does not boast of a high percentage of Catholics, Christmas has always been big hereabouts.

You will get to listen to Christmas carols aplenty as you pass by any Catholic home (being painted, decorated and spruced up), as Christmas is in the air, come December 1st !! There are the eternal favourites like “White Christmas” (by American-born Russian Irving Berlin) first performed by Bing Crossby way back in 1941, or Carol of the Drum (Little Drummer Boy) made famous by the Von Trapp singers of Salzburg (Sound of Music, remember) down to the most popular “Silent Night” composed in German by a schoolmaster in Austria in 1818 and declared as an intangible heritage by UNESCO.

Midnight Mass is a well-attended service with devotees spilling out of the many whitewashed Churches of Goa, into the open spaces; Fontainhas, in the Latin quarter boasts of a service held right out in the open with all its predominantly Catholic residents proud to come to the little 400-year-old St Sebastian Chapel – bumped into our neighbour, the legendary architect Charles Correa and his beautiful wife after the service over a piece of cake and coffee, generously served up by the padre !

Retreating to our ancestral-home (now a heritage homestay too), we pour ourselves some hand-made red wine (from my neighbour Pinto, as in Pinsons), something normally associated with Christmas the world over.

Christmas-day is a social affair with a few early visits to neighbours and close friends. otherwise it is a family-lunch that starts at noon and ends whenever you wish it to !

Culinary-wise, the Goan table on Christmas-day recreates a traditional feast handed down the ages with very little modifications. It must include lots of red wine, a pork dish, maybe roast, suckling pig replete with the apple in the mouth or at least sorpotel or cabidela de leitao. Add a roast chicken trussed a la turkey style, a beef assad, a whole fish lathered in reshaad masala and arroz (pullao), to ensure a fitting tribute to the girth of Santa ! Round it off with Christmas plum cake and a sherry … and if you choose to ( well, I did ! ), a fat Cuban cigar – ah ! the world seemed merrier through the blue haze, hic !!

Did I “have yourself a Merry Christmas” ( Frank Sinatra’s rendition is superb) ? The answer is simply – yes I did – and a full “12 days of Christmas” (amusingly calculated by PNC Wealth Mgmt to cost $ 107,300) !!!

 Thank God for our home in Goa, now restored as Mitaroy Goa Heritage HomeStay in the Latin quarter of Fontainhas.

Goa Tourism

Goa to get 35 lakh tourists this year, says minister

There is good news for Goa’s tourism industry.

Tourist numbers in Goa are expected to swell to 35 lakh during the forthcoming season, state Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar said Wednesday. The increase in tourist numbers is mainly due to the domestic tourists who have been visiting Goa. 

Annually, Goa attracts 22 lakh domestic visitors to its beaches and nightlife spots every year. Goa has already attracted over 16 lakh tourists and December would see the turnout double.

The minister has also predicted a rise of 50,000 in the number of foreign tourist arrivals this year to the 4.5 lakh foreign tourists who visit the state annually.

All in all, good news for an industry that is the basis for the livelihood of a large portion of the state’s population!