Govt notifies 10% fee hike for major tourism events in Goa

PANAJI: The tourism department has notified a 10% hike in fees for holding major tourism events. For music festivals organised in non-licensed premises, the existing fee of Rs 10 lakh for up to 5,000 attendees has been hiked by 10%.
Similarly, for music festivals with between 5,000 and 10,000 attendees and above 10,000, the fee has been hiked by the same amount from the existing Rs 15 lakh and Rs 20 lakh respectively. The number of attendees for the event will be calculated based on tickets and complimentary passes issued or actual attendees, whichever is higher.
For night/handicraft bazars, the old fees of Rs 50,000 per tourist season have been raised to Rs 60,000 per tourist season.
The tourism department has stated that the off-season fees will be one-fifth of season fees, and peak season fees will be five times the fees applicable during the season, excluding GST.
The security deposits remain unchanged from the current figures: Rs 10 lakh for up to 5,000 attendees, Rs 15 lakh for 5000 to 10,000 attendees, Rs 30 lakh for over 10,000 attendees and Rs 5 lakh for night/handicraft bazaars.
Similarly, for events like motorbike weeks, car rallies, non-ticketed music fests, MICE exhibitions and other tourism-related events like youth festivals, the security deposit will continue to be Rs 1 lakh.
The empowered committee of the new tourism services/event permissions body, in its meeting held on October 7 last year, had proposed to review the fee structure for major events, and the government has approved the proposal.
The government had constituted a state-level permissions committee (SLPC) under the chairmanship of the principal secretary/tourism secretary, on December 4, 2012.