It’s easy to see why Goa hotels are not rushing to reopen

Only 30 hotels have applied to the Goa Tourism Department for permission to reopen, as the state prepares itself to restart tourism.

“We have received around 30 applications from various hotels as of now. We will scrutinise these and after the government takes a call, we will allow them to open,” Director (Tourism) Menino D’Souza has said.

The number of applications is low, considering the state is home to several hundreds of hotels and home stays. The state’s hospitality sector has seen many people lose their jobs due to the pandemic, and many of the hotels are not in any shape to reopen immediately.

For most of these hotels, opening now, would only mean running up additional costs, with hardly any income flow as tourists have disappeared.

The state government is in the process of formulating a new standard operating procedure (SOP) and guidelines for reopening of the hospitality sector. Only those hotels which register with the Tourism Department will be allowed to open.

D’Souza said that the applicants also have to provide a self-declaration form in which the hotel managements have to give in writing that they have adhered to the existing guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

“All hotels which are willing to comply with the guidelines, have to apply to the department. We will verify whether they are in a position to comply with the guidelines,” he said, adding that the final nod would be given to them only after the state government forms a special SOP for the state for restarting of hotels.

The Travel and Tourism Association of India has estimated that the Covid-19 pandemic will cost Goa’s tourism industry far more than the Rs 1,000-crore loss they had originally estimated.  About 60,000-75,000 people may lose jobs.

Around 55 lakh foreign and domestic tourists visited the state in 2019 and contributed between 9-11% to the state’s GDP.