If soft sand and rolling waves instantly make you forget all your worries, then this piece of news might cheer you up. The tourism director Menino D’Souza recently announced that the Goa tourism department has started the demarcation of beach shacks along the North Goa coast.
And the cherry on the top is that the process will likely be completed in the next 10-15 days, as per reports in Times of India.
The Goa tourism department earlier this week started demarcating Goa’s north coastal belt which includes Candolim, Calangute and, Anjuna. Goa’s beach shacks are one of the biggest highlights of Goa’s tourism industry. Due to the whirlpool effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism industry felt the maximum burn. Goa’s northern belt and beach shacks attract average annual 7.8 million tourists every year.
Business owners who have been waiting to resume operations see the process of area allotment as a major relief. Although the operations were said to start from October itself, it somehow got delayed.
Whereas, the demarcation process in South Goa might take longer than usual due to short of manpower. Reportedly, many tourism department officials have taken up COVID related duties at the South Goa Collectorate building, which will be taking some time.
Shack owners are hopeful that the upcoming festive season will boost their sales and are willing to start their business from the first week of November. As per relaxed norms, Goa had earlier made it mandatory for tourists to avail of a COVID-19 negative certificate two days prior to reaching Goa via road, air, or sea route, but now there’s no such rule. People can travel to Goa as long as they follow mandatory precautions, including social distancing, use of sanitisers, and wearing masks.
In a bid to give some relief to the operators who have suffered losses due to the pandemic, the government has announced to reduce the license fee for shacks by 50 percent.