BRICS cannot help Goa Tourism

First appeared in  the Goan Everyday

The Chief Minister of the State has made a statement that the BRICS summit to be held in Goa latter this month will help tourism in the State. Most likely he made this statement to try and get some stake holders especially those in the Coastal belt to support some issues viz: mobile towers for improved connectivity. He must have felt that, with a lot of them depending on tourism for a lively hood they would relent and not oppose the last minute activity if they believed it would benefit them.

What is BRICS? BRICS is the acronym for an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.  The BRICS members are all leading developing or newly industrialized countries, but they are distinguished by their large, sometimes fast-growing economies and significant influence on regional affairs. The stated objective is to focus was on means of improving the global economic situation and reforming financial institutions, and how the countries could better co-operate in the future or make an impact on global issues.

It is clear that BRICS has no role to play in the local economy let alone give tourism a boost in Goa. At most it will test Goa’s ability to hold an important Global conference in terms of venue, availability of hotels and connectivity. Not for the Heads of State, they will fly in on special aircraft but for the others, especially the world press. So it is good if Goa gives a good account of itself, one of the areas Goa wishes to position itself is MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) tourism.

Despite knowing in March 2016 that the BRICS Conference was scheduled for Oct 2016, nothing much seemed to be done. If some planning had gone into the organising of the Conference would the hotmixing have to be done in a hurry, from the Aiport to The Taj Hotel. The shoddy work will come apart in a few months and the public money spent will be wasted. Hotmixing was done on the surfaces not prepared, while it appears nice, will it last. The widening of the Colva road was started a couple of months ago. Could it not have been delayed till after the Conference. Now, lots of dressing is being done obviously in a hurry and at an extra cost. This will have to be redone later and money spent again.

Does the “life” of the local also mean nothing, assuming that public money is of no consequence to the powers that be. All speed breakers have been removed, why were they put in the first place. Surely, if the Government wishes to remove the speed breakers for the duration leading up to the conference they would have additional police handling the traffic especially near educational institutions to ensure smooth and safe flow of traffic. It remains to be seen how quickly the speed breakers and rumblers are reinstalled post the Conference. More money will be wasted. I cannot believe that speed restricting devices would have been removed in a developed country just because the Head of State is going to pass. The quality of the work done near Carmel college means that the Head of State is going to feel the bump for sure.

A lot of effort and threats have flown past citizens like the waters of the Mandovi with regard to mobile towers. Does this mean that citizens are supposed to get a better service only because the Conference attendees need connectivity. Most likely each, Head of State will have his own communication system and surely not going to depend on BSNL or any other private operator. Mobile towers are required but using the Conference to shove it down the throats of the Citizens is not an answer.

If the Government is serious about pushing Tourism then it is not piggy back on the BRICS conference, but focus on a few couple of other things especially infrastructure.

Public Transport. Nowhere in the world where Tourism is a mainstay will you arrive at the airport and find yourself at the mercy of taxi drivers. Taxi’s are an option, and so are private shuttle services, public buses or trains. While a “train/metro” may or may not be an option in Goa, surely private shuttle service or KTC bus service is easy to implement. The industry association has already gone to Court to force the Government to get the Taxi’s to install meters. This shows that the Government is unable to implement a decision which will have a positive impact on the whole economy because of a seemingly negative effect on a limited vote bank segment. The irony is that if tourism booms even the taxi drivers automatically benefit.

Clean Beaches and public areas. One aspect that puts many a tourist off is filth. They associate filth rightly with unhygienic conditions and thus sickness. No tourist wants to fall sick on a holiday. Unfortunately, the Government spends crores of Rupees every month on contractors tasked with cleaning and there is not one beach which can be classified at the cleanest beach in Goa. For BRICS the large metal dustbins along the highway have been removed and the highway is being policed by specially paid contractors to ensure there is no garbage and it does look clean. Why cannot this system be in place all year round?

If the Government of Goa focuses on just infrastructure creation to ease transport woes and on Garbage, Goa will be surely be what God wanted it to be “a paradise” not just for tourists but also for the local inhabitants.