Russian consul: Goa’s taxi drivers to blame for decline in Russian tourists

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Written by Linda Hohnholz

CALANGUTE, India – It’s not the devalued ruble, but Goa’s unruly taxi drivers who are to blame for the decline in Russian charter tourist arrivals, according to Russian consul in Goa, Vikram Verma.

CALANGUTE, India – It’s not the devalued ruble, but Goa’s unruly taxi drivers who are to blame for the decline in Russian charter tourist arrivals, according to Russian consul in Goa, Vikram Verma. There has been a drop of over 50% in Russian charter arrivals in the ongoing tourist season.

Speaking to TOI, he said that even though he had the impression that Russians were not travelling in big numbers because of the devalued ruble, he had recently discovered that a block of around 40,000-plus Russian tourists had decided to cancel their vacation trip to Goa, and instead headed to Portugal and Spain. “A lot of Russians have the money but they’re scared of coming to Goa because if they come to Goa and can’t speak in English then there will be problems,” he said.

“Last year, there were 10-15 incidents where the interpreters travelling with the Russian charter tourists were detained by taxi drivers. Their interpreters were accused of being illegal guides. In one particular incident, a bus was detained at Pernem police station for three-four hours and the Russian tourists had to sit inside the bus while taxi drivers were banging the bus with ‘lathis’ and threatening the tourists. One elderly Russian had a heart attack inside the bus and he was scared to come out of the bus for medical attention because of the violent behaviour by the taxi drivers. When you put that kind of fear in your tourist, it results in the tourists stepping back,” said Verma.

“All those incidents went viral because of social media like Facebook where people share what has happened to them. The Goa government has not taken any action about these incidents or tried to find a solution. That kind of thing has had a detrimental effect on Russian charter tourists visiting Goa. They cannot travel without interpreters because they don’t speak English. Some have a medical history and may need help, some may want to know more about a monument. When those interpreters are detained and deported, then it sends a wrong signal. It sends a bad signal that we don’t want Russian tourists,” Verma said.

“The management of the tourism industry in Goa has not been very progressive and that has resulted in a large number of Russians, this year, cancelling their visits to Goa. They either need to provide trained Russian language speakers or allow the interpreters,” he added.

When contacted, tourism minister Dilip Parulekar said he was unaware about this factor. “If there is something like this, then we will have to intervene in the matter. We will initiate a dialogue with the Russian consul, the Russian Information Centre and other Russian stakeholders and find out their suggestions and we will solve this problem,” he said, adding that it is important to resolve this matter in the interest of the tourism industry in Goa.

“When I travel abroad to Russia or Portugal, we are provided with interpreters as otherwise it becomes impossible to move around or communicate with the local people there. We need to have similar facilities in Goa, too,” Parulekar said.

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Avatar of Linda Hohnholz

Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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