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Rituparna Chatterjee – Mumbai
With a focus to promote Goa as a year-round destination, Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) is hosting a series of festivals beginning early this year and will also be launching Goa’s first Cashew and Coconut Festival in mid-May. The Cashew and Coconut Festival will include fun activities like cashew stomping; competitions like coconut breaking, coconut tree climbing, and will showcase handicrafts and dishes made of coconut, coconut and cashew Feni, to name a few. Commenting on this, Nikhil U Desai, managing director, GTDC stated, “Through this festival we will showcase the two main crops – cashew and coconut – that contribute towards the economy of the state. We are expecting a footfall of 70,000 to 80,000 international and domestic tourists.”
Goa is also hosting this year’s edition of its popular festival – Carnaval from March 1-4, 2014. Carnaval 2014 will be celebrated across seven cities with the main parade taking place in Panaji on the first day. “200,000 people visited the Carnaval last year and this year we are expecting not less than 300,000 visitors. For security, we will deploy 250 Indian reserve battalion (IRB) personnel in all the tourist destinations along with the local police,” stated Dilip D Parulekar, minister for tourism, women and child development and protocol, Government of Goa.
| GITM 2014 to host over 125 intl buyers |
| The Goa International Travel Mart (GITM), which is to be held from April 2-4, 2014 at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee Stadium at Taleigao, is expected to host over 125 international buyers from USA, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Czech Republic, Russia, Poland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Malaysia, Argentina; and over 150 buyers from the domestic market. The main aim behind GITM 2014 is to serve as a platform for face-to-face networking among travel-trade, hoteliers and other stakeholders from Goa with leading travel agents from India and abroad. |
Coinciding with the Carnaval 2014, GTDC is also organising the Food and Culture Festival to be held from February 28 to March 4, 2014. The festival, which was revived last year after a gap of nine years, will showcase Goan cuisine along with other Indian cuisines stated Desai. The parade during the Shigmo Festival (March 16-31) will take place across 17 cities this year. Elaborating on the Shigmo Festival, Desai opined, “The Shigmo Festival attracts a lot of repeat travellers and temple processions are also held during this period.”
