Festive spirit on a high :Goa

With a little over 24 hours left for the festival of joy (Christmas), preparations are nearing climax with homes and village corners already decked up with illuminated lights and X-mas trees.

On Wednesday members of village clubs and youth organisations of different churches were seen giving final touches to their respective cribs, while some were halfway through the completion process.

The markets were cramming with people to stock up sweets and other items for the festival. Gift shops, cake shops and card galleries in the city did some brisk business till evening and expect more people to crowd them tomorrow.

Businessmen in tourist places like Calangute, Candolim, Baga, etc., sounded a little optimistic because Christmas, which follows two days of holidays, is expected to bring in a surge of domestic tourists.

But many of the hotels in the Baga-Calangute belt had not reached full occupancy. Hoteliers are expecting most of the rooms to be occupied by tomorrow. They feel people will take advantage of the two days of holiday, Saturday and Sunday, to extend their merry making.

Inquiries by this reporter at the Goan Village Hotel in Candolim revealed the place had not reached its full occupancy. “We are not even getting the minimum Rs 3,000 per room. The average earning per room this Christmas is Rs 1,300. It wasn’t so bad last year”, said Sushant Kudav, General Manager at Goan Village.

Alor Grande, a two-starred resort, too has some rooms empty during the first two days of Christmas but from December 27 to 31 its occupancy in the 150 rooms is registered full. Till Wednesday nine of its rooms were empty.

Director of Tourism, Swapnil Naik said the Department was expecting full occupancy of the 42,000-bed capacity in the State.

Naik said another morale boosting thing was that Israel had withdrawn its travel advisory warning their citizens to be cautious while holidaying in Goa. “This is good from the security point of view because the fear of threat perception will not be there in tourists enjoying their holidays”, he stated.

The director said this time chartered flights from European countries were less because of the recession. “Till December 13, 149 charter flights flew into Goa bringing around 36,455 foreign tourists. The maximum number of flights (72) arrived from Russia, followed by 47 from Britain”, he informed. The rest were from Norway (12), Finland (6), Germany (4) and Kazakhstan (4), he mentioned.

While some lesser-known stars and celebrities are holidaying in Goa to usher in the Christmas festivities, a galaxy of big stars and politicians are expected to descend on the State a day before the New Year party. Police refrained from disclosing their names for security reasons.

[Source]