Buoyed by 55 per cent growth in tourist inflow during monsoon last year, the Goa Tourism department is expecting impressive footfalls in the state during this rainy season too.
The Tourism department has published this surge of tourists in 2016 between June and September, which was earlier tagged as off or lean season by the industry.
"With aggressive marketing and promotion, monsoonsin Goa which used to be the off-season has now turned into an on-season," State Tourism Director Menino D'Souza told PTI today.
He said the spurtin tourist arrivals began with a 10-12 per centgrowth registered in the last decade till 2013. Now it is gradually on an incline with 18 percent growth in 2014, to 23 per centin2015 and55 per centin 2016 for theperiod between June and September.
Goa has been famous worldwide and also across the country as a beach destination.
The state has a 105-kilometre-long beach stretch which has been attracting lakhs of visitors, both domestic and foreign, for last several decades.
D'Souza said the growth in monsoon tourism has got a boost as hotelscontinue to offer specialpackages and the number of monsoon activities have also increased.
State run Goa Tourism Development Corporation has introduced activities like trekking, white water rafting, monsoon festivals, special monsoon cuisine,trips to picturesque locales,biking,waterfall visits and others to woo visitors, he said.
The introduction of new train services like Tejas and the Maharajah Express will also bring in more tourists from neighbouringstates, he said.
Goa is also ahot spot for extended weekends and holidaying during that time is a popular trend among domestic tourists, the director said quoting a recent survey by a website which declared Goa as India's most popular monsoon traveldestination among Indian travellers for2017.
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