E-Paper
‘Thank you’: Pramod Sawant on Centre’s move to resume e-Visas for UK tourists
Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant said the Centre’s decision will benefit all stakeholders in Goa’s tourism sector
PANAJI: The Goa government on Tuesday welcomed the central government’s decision to resume e-travel visas (ETVs) for travellers from the UK
“I thank the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs for resuming the e-Visa facility for the UK nationals travelling to India. The decision shall bring ease to the tourists who are travelling to India, Goa. It will benefit all the stakeholders in the Tourism sector of Goa,” chief minister Pramod Sawant said in a post on Twitter on Tuesday.
On Monday, the Indian high commission in London announced that e-Visa facility will again be available for UK nationals travelling to India. “A system upgrade is underway & the visa website will soon be ready to receive applications from friends in the UK,” the high commission said in a post on Monday.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, tourists from the UK were eligible for an e-travel visa which is also referred to as the visa on arrival. After international travel opened after the pandemic, while ETVs were restored for most countries, the UK and Canada continue to be excluded, despite several representations from tourism operators in India.
The tourism industry had assessed that the UK’s exclusion from e-Tourist Visas could cost Goa about 40,000 to 60,000 tourist arrivals.
Goa received around 9 lakh foreign tourists annually, almost all of them from Europe. A bulk of them arrived via charter flights on package trips.
Charter tourism has been particularly popular in Scandinavian countries where individuals seek to avoid long, cold, and dark winters to visit the warmer south.
According to industry representatives, charter planes with tourists from Europe including Russia flying in and out of Goa airport account for 92% of the country’s charter industry as well as serve to bring in a majority of foreign tourists who come to Goa. Most foreign tourists who came to Goa before the pandemic were from the UK, Germany, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
