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Published on : Wednesday, July 22, 2020
After a week since Goa opened its doors for tourism and hotels were permitted to restart their businesses, the sector has witnessed just 5-10% occupancy. Some functioning hotels are yet to receive a single guest, and many of them are opting to wait and watch.
The increase in infections in Goa over the past 15 days seems to have played a spoilsport on travel plans. However, the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa ((TTAG) said that bookings will increase slowly with a slight increase next month.
“Since last week, some hotels have received bookings, but not more than 10%,” said TTAG president Nilesh Shah. “We expect a rise by 30-40% in August, as long as the Covid situation doesn’t worsen.”
Hotelier Ralph de Sousa said that he hasn’t received any bookings up till now, but has received a lot of inquiries for probable events in November and December. He said that even though hotels wish to open, they would have to wait owing to staffing problems. De Sousa said that since Goa’s domestic tourists come from metros, the state need to be extra careful, since metros are among the worst-hit.