Tag Archives: Manohar Ajgaonkar

The tourism department of Goa issued notice to several hotels against putting up in rented villas and bed and breakfast facilities that were not registered with the state tourism department. Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar said that booking a non-registered hotel will soon be considered illegal and strict actions will be taken on bookings going ahead. Due to non-registration of such facilities, it was difficult to track the exact number of tourists who visit Goa every year, he added.

Goa Tourism has been contributing immensely to the digital transformation of the country’s travel sector. Goa Tourism through Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) recently launched Goa Miles, an app-based taxi service to streamline the entire tourist transportation process within the state. GTDC has also launched an e-commerce portal and a mobile application to provide tourists a digital experience of Goa. Visitors can browse through various options ranging from holiday packages, hotel bookings to adventure trips, spice gardens and water parks, among others. Speaking on the occasion of World Tourism Day, Goa Minister for Tourism Manohar Ajgaonkar said, “At a time when tourism boards are competing hard, Goa Tourism has gone ahead to increase its reach to the world and the results are visible. From digitalising our internal processes to our tourism services, Goa Tourism has come a long way in this digital transformation. I wish our tourism partners, stakeholders and each and every visitor to Goa a pleasant experience with Goa Tourism.” Goa Tourism recently launched an aggressive social media campaign ‘Tourism by Tourists’ to promote Goa as a ‘must-visit’ destination. To achieve this, Goa Tourism partnered with over 500 amateur photographers (through crowd-sourced Instagram activity: #PickMyGoaPic), more than 100 bloggers and 30 YouTube content creators to harness their content while touring Goa. The content shared by them was amalgamated into a video promoting Goa as a ‘must-visit’ destination. The campaign bagged a Gold at the National Tourism Awards by the Tourism Ministry for ‘Best use of Social Media in promotion of a Tourism Board’ in 2017.

Goa has been ranked third in the list of top five states in tourism as per the 5th biennial Hotelivate State Ranking Survey for Tourism in association with the World Travel and Tourism Council-India Initiative (WTTC-II). While Delhi and Maharashtra occupy the top two places, Goa stands third followed by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The survey   which looked  at states from the hospitality industry’s standpoint considered 11 parameters  namely, state expenditure on tourism, number of tourist visits, number of branded hotel rooms, GSDP per capital, literacy, aircraft movement, ease of doing business, urbanization, road and rail network, marketing campaigns and some intangible aspects. Manohar Ajgaonkar, Minister for Tourism, Goa, said, “Goa Tourism is in the spotlight again for achieving success in various tourism parameters. It should be our endeavour to get to the top and work on improving in those parameters where we are lagging behind so as to attract more tourists to Goa.” Nilesh Cabral, Chairman, Goa Tourism Development Corporation, said, “It has always been the endeavour of the Goa Tourism Development Corporation to work with various segments of tourism whether infrastructure, accommodation, tourism activities, tourism related development and so on.”