A Rs.10,000\- question?

 There are many distinguishing factors about the Indian traveller. Globally the trend is to travel more like a nuclear unit, your immediate family, with your partner or even solo, but in India we like to travel in a group. The society group, a corporate outing with your colleagues, travelling with your religious group for a pilgrimage or even the extended family coming together for a holiday. 

The logistics of planning for a family holiday is immense and can get stressful, family watsaap groups will be buzzing with ideas right from destinations to mode of travel and activities that need to be included, then there is the process of multiple working professionals getting leave, the dates have to match, the schedule of the children travelling together, their schooling, exam’s tuitions and classes get accommodated. 

Once this gigantic democratic exercise concludes, the process of selecting the hotel / villa / homestay and planning the daily schedule of your holiday commences. Different points of views, suggestions of friends, uncles and aunts who have visited the destination gets discussed and then finally the hotel is decided and there is consensus on the daily schedule, 

Here we enter the next stage of planning a family Holiday. Tickets are booked, hotels are confirmed, advances are made and now everyone looks forward to the date of travel. All arrangements are in order and finally everyone is at peace. 

Generally holidays get planned and bookings are done months in advance, so that everyone has time to work around their schedule. Closer to the date of travel to make a general inquiry on the amenities of the hotel or the check in time or anything else you call the person with whom you have been communicating about your booking. When there is no answer after multiple calls, there is panic and then there is frantic calling and messaging. It is at this stage that you begin to realise that you have been cheated upon. 

Considering the above stress, process and coordination that the family has gone through, there is disappointment and anger but then you have to immediately make arrangements for a new hotel booking. 

Fraud in hotel reservations, inacuracy in the amenities promised, changing the hotel upon arrival all this and more are far more common than you can imagine, The tourism sector is fraught with pimps and fraudsters who want to make a quick buck. There is no regulation, there is no accountability. Anyone can put up a flashy website in a couple of hours and the scale of these frauds are very high.  

The recent policy of the government of Goa to encourage all tourism units to register themselves is a welcome move, but there is much more to be done, from world over tourists come to Goa and they need to feel safe, this can only happen if we as a society start respecting the rule of the land and not look for shortcuts in making a quick buck. 

https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/goa-tourism-dept-to-roll-out-online-approval-registration-system-soon-minister-khaunte/91062231

India is a fascinating land with mind boggling diversity. Each state, region has a distinct cuisine, language, music, theatre and art. Can you imagine the experiences that a tourist can take back from our great country? We can be a leader in this sector, creating millions of jobs, opportunities etc. We need to be more understanding. By going for quick bucks through touting and fraud we are depriving ourselves of unimaginable growth and satisfaction. 

Hoping for the better. 

This is an incident of a fraud that has happened to a family traveling to Goa for a Holiday, Booking was made directly by them to this person who later went incognito

A payment of Rs.10,000\- advance was made to a villa in Calangute for a family holiday, once the payment was processed the person with whom the booking was processed has never picked up the call, In the location shared there was no such hotel, there was no way to track the hotel or the person. The legal way was way to complicated and time consuming. The advance was let go of and a fresh booking was made at another hotel.