Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte, asserted that the Department of Tourism’s cautious estimations, which drew on data from road, rail, and air travelers, indicated that 1.4 crore tourists visited the State last year.
At the Tourism Stakeholder Conclave in Dona Paula, Khaunte told reporters that 4.67 lakh overseas visitors and 99.41 lakh domestic visitors have visited in Goa in 2024.
He emphasized that, in comparison to 2023, the State saw an annual growth of 22%. Additionally, compared to December 2023, there were 54% more tourists in the State in December 2024. He reported that the last quarter’s quarterly growth, which ran from October to December, was 38%.
During the final week of December, 200 planes each day arrived in Goa, setting a sort of record that Khaunte called unparalleled.
Khaunte claims that while the number of foreign visitors climbed by 3%, the number of domestic tourists surged by 22%.
In response to a question concerning the low growth rate of foreign tourists, the Minister claimed that a 3% increase in foreign tourists in Goa is a good result and better than the national average, considering that Asian tourism has not yet recovered from the harm caused by COVID-19 and is currently at -18%.
“Goa tourism has recovered to over 50% of pre-Covid levels,” he stated. Goa is still a popular tourist destination.
In the latter quarter of December 2024, Khaunte denounced the attacks against Goa that surfaced through social media influencers, claiming that the attacks were sparked by “unverified data” made public by the China Economic Information Center.