STEADY DECLINE IN INTL TOURISTS

Goa witnessed a steady decrease in the number of international tourists visiting Goa in the year 2021. The covid 19 pandemic is believed to be an important factor in this. In the year 2019 Goa welcomed 9.37 lakhs international tourists. In 2021, the number of international tourists came down to a mere 22,128, a written reply to the assembly stated.

The reply said the State receives international tourists from the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, USA, Switzerland, Sweden, and France which are mostly high spending tourists. The number of these tourists in 2019 was 9, 37,113 which came down to 3,00,193 in 2020 before falling down to 22,128 in 2021.

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NATIONALITY-WISE FOREIGN TOURIST ARRIVALS DURING THE YEAR 2019 to 2021
Sr No	Countries/ Nationality	No. of Tourist arrived in the Year 2019	No. of Tourist arrived in the Year 2020	No. of Tourist arrived in the Year 2021
1	U.K.	271684	107353	3166
2	Russia	341730	83565	1308
3	Germany	17549	5437	652
4	Ukraine	39585	2487	91
5	Finland	7845	1894	91
6	France	9761	4142	598

Now the main question is on how to increase the numbers of international tourists and bring the situation back to normalcy. Reply said the top eight tourism spending countries in the world as per UNWTO are China, USA, Germany, UK, France, Russia, Australia, Canada , South Korea and Italy. Goa Tourism will undertake marketing promotions in these countries so as to develop new markets and also encourage high spending tourists from these nations to visit Goa.