Great Goaing: Goa is struggling to cope with the aftereffects of overtourism, but you cannot write it off

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Goa are particularly prone to a kind of reporting. Journalists or social media influencers come on a holiday. They hang out in a resort, go out to a few restaurants, shop in a few places, meet a local friend and speak to their taxi drivers. Then they string together their peeves or “new” discoveries, and a tourism trends story is born. Have to justify the time off, right? Some of the disgruntled posts that triggered the recent spat over the apparently declining state of tourism in Goa are right out of this playbook, with added moralism. “The problem with Goa is that it became rich without much effort,” declared a particularly pompous post. Tourists complaining about tourism-linked problems show a profound lack of self-reflection. Meanwhile, comparing a small state in India with countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand will yield inaccurate perspectives. Nothing is helped, though, by the reliably wrong-headed responses of the Goa government.

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The data doesn’t show Goa being “down in the dumps”, as a social media post alleged. According to Noesis, a leading hotel investment and advisory firm, Goa’s tourism is gearing up for a landmark year in 2024, building on the momentum of a strong 2023 recovery. Domestic arrivals are projected to top 8.5 million, while foreign visitors may touch pre-pandemic levels, potentially exceeding 500,000.

Even if foreign tourist arrivals fail to pick up, it’s not likely to matter from the point of view of profits. For all that Goa’s hippies and Russians were a sign of its global