Rajdeep Sardesai, self-proclaimed vulture-journalist, known for his twists and spin to the facts has arrived once again with yet another false data to claim that there has been a decline in the number of tourists visiting Goa.
In his tweet, Sardesai without citing any facts had stated that there has been a thirty per cent decline in the footfall of the tourists this year in Goa. He went on subtly blame the centre by claiming that the higher rate of GST on hotels, costlier airfares are the reasons for the decrease in tourists in the state of Goa without producing any data to substantiate his rhetorics.
Goa is witnessing a 30 per cent decline in footfalls of tourists this year.. High GST on hotels, hiked airfares part of the problem.. larger issue: has Goa tourism simply failed to move to next level.. Goa has so much more to offer than a Phuket yet well behind in tourism..
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) December 30, 2018
However, Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer of Vistara airlines schooled Rajdeep Sardesai by citing the growth of his organisation relating to their operations in Goa contrary to Sardesai’s claims. Kapoor said that there were no signs of any decline instead Vistara had, in fact, added new flights to Goa.
Our Goa loads have shown no sign of decline. In fact we added flights this year. https://t.co/QwgTccvNky
— Sanjiv Kapoor (@TheSanjivKapoor) December 30, 2018
Interestingly, the data [pdf] released by the Goa tourism department suggest that there has been a growth in the arrival of tourists to the state. The data suggests that nearly 78 lakh tourists arrived in Goa in the year 2017 as compared to 63.3 lakh in 2016, with a growth of 23 per cent in tourist growth. The provisional data for the first five months in the year 2018 has shown that more than 31 lakh tourists have arrived maintaining the rate of tourist arrival similar to last year.
Rajdeep Sardesai in a hurry to discredit economic reforms pursued by the present NDA government has yet again resorted to fake data to peddle false narratives. Recently, he had caused controversy after he had thanked Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan for the release of Indian national Hamid Nehal Ansari despite the fact that Pakistan Prime Minister had no role in his release. In fact, the Imran Khan government had referred Ansari as an ‘Indian Spy’ and had accused him of involving in “anti-state crimes and forging documents”.
