Calangute shack owners hope for uptick in business
Times of India | 1 day ago | 01-01-2023 | 04:31 am
Times of India
1 day ago | 01-01-2023 | 04:31 am
Calangute: While business is running well for many beach shacks at the main Calangute beach entrance and at Baga, it’s turning out to be a disappointing season for most of the other shacks in the Calangute-Candolim tourism hub which comprises more than half of all the beach shacks in the state. Stakeholders said the main reasons for lack of business are low charter tourist arrivals and the 10pm ban on sound, but are hoping business picks up next month with an uptick in British charter arrivals. Stakeholders also said that hotels are mostly full as the year-end crowd was mostly headed for the Sunburn festival. “They’re all going to Vagator so there’s no business for us in Calangute-Candolim,” some shack owners said. “Domestic tourists don’t like to come out in the sun. They come to the beach at night, but the 10pm sound ban means they go to discos with indoor music. So those customers are also not there. Every night after 10pm, the police come to check and ensure that there is no music being played,” Gino Lopes, a veteran shack owner in Candolim, said. “Business is slow. They said charters are coming, but there are hardly any charter tourists. Now they’re saying British charters are coming next month, so maybe things will improve,” Lopes said. However, others were skeptical about British charters landing in large numbers due to the delay in resolving the e-visa issue. “The messages I’ve got from my friends in the UK is that they might come to Goa during the next season. They do their bookings early and they’re saying that now they are heading to Turkey this season. It depends on people who are doing last-minute bookings, and if they get good discounts they might come. But it doesn’t look like it will be good,” John Lobo, general secretary of the shack owners’ welfare society (SOWS), said.
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