Reading this article by Vivek Menezes, I would have thought the anti-tourist Goanetters should be very happy. But in typical Goan tradition, these same educated Goans keep crying about the results they aspired / longed for. It took a few years for their perennial (sodanchem) complaining (on everything Goan) to bear fruit. I hate to write this paragraph. But sometimes I feel that some goanetters abuse their right to complain and lie about Goa; that we likely would not accept from outsiders (bhaile). If that is the case, then Goanet is doing a disservice to Goa and Goans in offering an easy and free medium of communication. I still have not gotten over the tasteless article written by Vivek Menezes on Goa in TOI on the eve of BRICK summit held in Goa a few years ago. So native Goans should decide and stop talking from both sides of their mouth. One cannot have ones cake and eat it too! AND DO NOT RELY ON THE GOVERNMENT TO DO IT ALL! However, if the Goanetters realize and appreciate their predicament they created and start reversing their attitude, then it will take a few years to reverse the results. Plant a garden around your own home. Fix and paint the house.Keep clean roads and proper traffic.Smile and welcome outsiders. (instead of fleecing them) Believe me you yourself will enjoy the fruit of these efforts.
Regards, Gilert ===================From: V M Subject: [Goanet] Goa's Last Stand (Times of India, 02/12/2017) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/future-of-goa-depends-on-its-hinterlands/articleshow/61886425.cms We are just into the peak tourism season that extends through December to February, and a glaring problem has already made itself apparent. Flights are full, and the beaches are crowded, but the demographics of Goa's marketplace seem irrevocably shifted. There are fewer families, and far more groups of single male travellers than ever before. There is a visible predominance of visitors from just across state borders with Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra, very many of them bus trippers. The proportion of foreign tourists in Goa is dramatically diminished, and fast dwindling further to no more than 15%. Last year, the country registered an impressive new record number of foreign visitors, almost nine million in total. Of these, less than 10% came to Goa, only around 6.8 lakh. The rest of India experiences close to 20% growth in international travel demand year in and year out, but Goa is conspicuously left out. Instead, entirely due to suicidal state and industry policies that have continually degraded the destination to the global bargain basement, there is a continual race to the bottom that is crowded with the lowest-value tourists available anywhere. This is a story of comprehensive mismanagement, carelessness and neglect. At the start of the new millennium, Goa was a genuine international phenomenon
