CALANGUTE: In a tourist season hit by the pandemic, many shack owners in the Calangute-Candolim beach belt are planning to shut down their shacks early. John Lobo, general secretary of the Shack Owners’ Welfare Society (SOWS), said that most of the beach shacks in Candolim are going to shut down this month because of poor business.
The shack owners are winding up more than three months before the end of the season in May.
“The domestic tourist crowds are there only in Calangute and Baga, so shacks there are doing decent business. But in some wards of Calangute and in Candolim shacks are not doing even 10% of their normal business because 90% of their clients were foreign charter tourists. They had put up their shacks thinking charter tourists would come by January, but that hasn’t happened,” Lobo said.
“Many shack owners in Candolim did not even put up their shacks because there would be no foreign charter tourists,” Manuel Cardozo, president of the Traditional Shack Owners Association, said.
Those shack owners in Calangute, who were also largely dependent on foreign charter tourists, are also planning to shut down early, he said.
Domestic tourists are not able to visit shacks in some areas in Calangute-Candolim because of no road access. There are around 200 shacks in the tourism hub.
“Business is very bad. It’s just for survival. There was some business during December-January, but now it’s gone down. We are waiting to see how things are till next month. So far I have not even recovered my shack licence fee amount,” Cardozo said. “Now nobody knows how it will be next month.”
According to Lobo, beach shacks can shut down early if there is no business and shack owners do not get penalised. “There is no restriction on shutting down. There is no issue,” he said.