What’s Goa-ing on? The past, present and future of tourism in Goa

Justine Calais of the Responsible Tourism Collective of Goa shares her “GT” Insight into what’s really going on with tourism in India’s Sunshine State.

Goa is a unique place. It is fair to say that it has everything going for it that a tourism destination could ever wish to have. It is also fair to say that it has everything going wrong for it that a tourism destination should never wish to have. And herein lies the tragedy.

Tourists have been coming to Goa for years. From around the mid 1960’s onwards, European travellers started arriving on the Hippie trail. They found a Goa that was completely untouched; there was nothing here – Goa was blissfully ignorant that tourists even existed! The locals provided for them, but only as an extension to the way they were already living – perhaps a fisherman would decide to build an extension to his thatched beach hut, and to catch an extra fish for dinner. The peace-loving hippies would have created their own hangouts, no doubt inspired by the Goan ‘susegad’ way of life.

https://goodtourismblog.com/2019/04/past-present-future-goa-india-tourism/