Jan 13 – Goa saw a tourist footfall of 1.4 crore in the year 2024, as per conservative estimates done by the State Tourism Department using air, rail and road travellers data, informed Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte. He was speaking to media persons at the Tourism Stakeholder Conclave today. 99.41 lakh domestic and 4.67 foreign tourists arrived in Goa in 2024, he added. The minister went on to highlight that the state saw 22 % year on year growth as compared to 2023. In addition 54 % more tourists visited the state in December 2024 as compared to December 2023. The quarterly growth of last quarter i.e Oct to Dec stood at 38 %, he informed. In a record of sorts, last week of December saw 200 flights arriving in Goa per day, Khaunte informed.
Number of domestic tourists went up by 22 % while number of Foreign Tourists went up by 3 %, he said further. When queried over low rate of Foreign Tourist growth, the minister asserted that when Asia tourism is yet to recover from covid damage and stands at -18 %, a 3% growth in Foreign tourists in Goa is positive growth. Khaunte condemned the attack which came on Goa through social media influencers in last quarter of December which he claimed was triggered by ‘unverified data’ which was released through China Economic Information Center.
