Muted demand delays tourist season in Goa

This is an EXCLUSIVE story. Do not reproduce or use in any manner whatsoever without the writer's permission.

Business for hospitality and tourism industry players in Goa is unlikely to reach the heights this peak season. In fact, the overall market scenario that was expected to improve in November and December months is yet to pick up steam. While some industry players are of the view that green shoots of revival are beginning to show up, a few others feel business is already down by 30%, if not more.

Rattan Keswani, deputy managing director, Lemon Tree Hotels and director, Carnation Hotels, said, the situation in Goa is not as robust as it should have been. “Demand is a bit muted than it normally is at this time of the year but we are seeing green shoots of revival,” he said adding that hotels being operated and managed by Lemon Tree in Goa are witnessing inflow of domestic travellers.

Chapora Beach (Picture Courtesy -- https://goa-tourism.org.in/chapora-beach-goa)

A sought after beach destination by international and domestic tourists alike, Goa has had a tough 2019 so far. While off-season months were full of challenges including those arising as a result of Jet Airways shutting down operations, the business season that would have typically compensated for the loss of revenues, isn’t looking any better either.

Santosh Iyer, vice-president - sales and marketing, GlobeTrott Leisure and Events, said, the market scenario in Goa is very subdued. “The economic slowdown, both in India and international markets, has only made it more challenging for the hospitality and tourism sector players. Compared to last year, business has taken a considerable hit and is down between 20% and 30% already. We are hoping situation to improve and business to pick up towards the last week of December,” he said.

A key reason for this scenario in Goa is the fact that tourist inflow via chartered fights from the European markets has stopped completely after the collapse of 178-year-old British tour operator Thomas Cook UK Plc. This significantly impacted business as a large percentage of these holidayers, estimated to be over 35,000, are unlikely to make it to Goa.

The industry was hoping for some respite after Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant’s assurance in September about the possibilities of direct flights by Air India from London to Goa, before the season begins. However, it’s already third week of November and nothing has happened on that front yet. This basically puts an end to the possibility of a large majority of European travellers coming to Goa this season.

Aloo Gomes Pereira, chief operating officer - Charters & Goa, Trail Blazer Tours India Pvt Ltd, chartered flights from Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries are still coming but the numbers are nothing to write home about. “Tourists from Ukraine will start coming in from December, so we’ll have to see how that pans out for the tourism industry in Goa,” said Pereira adding that the beach destination will see scanty international traffic this season.

According to a top hotelier, a lot of hotels in their competitive set were dependent on CIS charters and the numbers this time around are far less. “All hotels banking on charter contracts are having a tough time. Those with a right mix and not having too many charter contracts are protected,” said the hotelier adding that room rates continue to be under pressure.

Hotels were also hoping for better room revenues after goods and services tax (GST) rate cuts were announced on room tariffs. For rooms priced at Rs 7,500 and above, the GST rate was reduced to 18% from 28% earlier. Hotels selling rooms priced between Rs 1,000 and Rs 7,500 would have to levy 12% GST and hotels charging less than Rs 1,000 for their guestrooms have no GST.

“Room rates were hiked in October in the hope of a good business season. However, sensing the ground reality, majority of the hotel operators have re-priced their guestrooms and are now focusing on boosting occupancy levels. It’s all about optimising the total room inventory now,” said a top executive from one of the hotel chains operating in Goa.

While foreign arrivals into Goa was and continues to be a challenge, industry players were anticipating that demand and supply gap would be taken care of by domestic tourists. Unfortunately, the shutting down of Jet Airways earlier this year has already impacted domestic tourist arrivals into Goa. While it’s starting to creep back the numbers are not as expected.

“It’s too early as it’s the first month after Dussehra and Diwali. Normally numbers start to translate now and build up in December, and then carry on in January, February and March. Occupancy wise I don’t think there is too much trouble but total revenue wise I think there is a bit of a shortfall,” said another hotel chain operator.

What’s also ailing Goa’s tourism industry is the deteriorating infrastructure in the state. Road conditions have gone from bad to worse making travelling within the state a very painful exercise.

“The current government is all about false promises and irresponsible statements. Nothing really is happening on the ground. It’s such a horrible experience just travelling from the airport to the hotel. Why would tourists come to Goa if the administration isn’t bothered about providing basic infrastructure facilities even,” said a local tour operator.

Caught in a situation, the hospitality and tourism industry players are left with no option but to find ways and deal with the challenging situation at hand on their own. And with increasing stress in the Indian economy getting pronounced every passing day, it will have to be seen if domestic travellers will have a role to play in bailing out Goa this tourist season.
(The writer is a Mumbai-based independent business journalist and has extensively covered diversified consumer businesses over the last two decades. He can be reached at hello@ashishktiwari.com)

This 23-year-old electronics engineer’s innovation looks to minimise road accident deaths

Prateek Kumar, Founder and Director, Vida Salvateur International Pvt Ltd

This feature first appeared in www.YourStory.com on Sunday, November 3, 2019.

When Prateek Kumar suffered a road accident while doing his BTech at the Delhi College of Engineering (DCE), it turned out to be a major turning point in his life. That experience in November 2016 not only changed the way he approached life, giving him a larger impetus to observe safety, but also gave him a purpose – to make a device that would ensure timely help in cases of road accidents.

“We all know someone who has lost a family member in a road accident because help did not arrive in time. It’s quite unfortunate and the sad reality that we are living in. This needs to change. I wanted to contribute towards bringing this change through my extensive experience in building solutions based on Internet of Things (IoT) and software, from conceptualising to production,” says Prateek.

Convalescing after the accident, Prateek set his mind on building a device that would be capable of sensing the intensity of an accident, sending out relevant information to the nearest hospital or other healthcare service provider, and also intimating the victim’s family members – all within seconds or minutes of the accident occurring.

The germ of an idea that the 23-year-old entrepreneur alighted on was a smart helmet integrating a chip or device, with the technology being retrofitted into existing headgear.

“I looked up sources online and came across some sporty helmets in the European markets featuring a GoPro camera and other gizmos; those didn’t align with what I had in mind and were quite expensive too. I wanted to make a cost effective smart circuit/ chip / device that can either be embedded or retrofitted in the helmet. More importantly, the technology solution had to be thought of keeping in mind the Indian road/ driving conditions. Then, in 2017, along with some friends, I began working on finding a viable offering for the Indian market. As it called for significant investments, I also wrote a software program and sold it to my college to raise money for this project,” recounts Prateek.

In February 2017, the team also received some funding from the Spark-up Idea Fund hosted by iCreate, the technology business incubation centre of the Gujarat government.

“Students and innovators at various engineering colleges across India can apply for the Spark-up Fund directly via https://icreate.org.in/spark_up. The entries are opened at regular intervals and details regarding participation are posted on the website. Applications submitted by various participants are scrutinised and shortlisted by a group of experts. This is followed by a few interview rounds over Skype or a telephone call. Winning entries are then offered up to Rs 50,000 in funding to enable students/ innovators take their respective projects to the next level of development,” said Prateek.

After graduating in 2018, Kumar registered his venture, Vida Salvateur International Pvt Ltd (VSIPL), under the government’s Startup India scheme.

The company’s name literally translates to life-saving in Spanish and or French -- Vida is Spanish for ‘life’ and Salvateur is French for ‘saving’ / ‘life-saving’). 

The smart helmet and the chip/device will be marketed under the brand Motobuddy. In fact, VSIPL is in the process of registering the trademark/ copyright for the brand and its handcrafted logo design.

So far, approximately Rs 25 lakh has been invested in the business, including a grant of Rs 10 lakh received in July last year under the Nidhi Prayas scheme of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India via IKP Eden, Bengaluru, which is India’s first hardware product incubator.

“Every year, two batches are rolled out for this scheme. One can directly apply to incubators that are listed under this programme. The funding offered is a huge support for innovators wanting to start their entrepreneurial journey,” he said.

When Prateek and his friends started developing the smart helmet’, the circuit designed to power the device was so large that it covered an entire helmet. Streamlining the device to an optimal size and making it aesthetically appealing was critical to ensure the headgear would be marketable.

After two years of hard work and numerous iterations, Prateek was successful in reducing the bulky circuit to a coin-sized chip.

Over the last two years, the company has worked extensively to fine-tune the innovation to accurately detect and send out alerts on an accident.

“It was quite a challenge to reduce the circuit to its present size. A lot of prototyping with the right set of manufacturers and components went into making this happen,” says Prateek.

The startup currently has 18 members handling various operational functions. The core team comprises Prateek who brings extensive experience in software development, Drones and IoT solutions to the table. Holding the chief technology officer (CTO) position in the company is Dr. Manoj Saxena, a gold medallist from DCE, masters from IISc and, a PhD from IIT Delhi and Stanford University. Armed with an MBA from INSEAD, Venugopal Gupta is associated with the company as a business advisor and mentor. The author of Business Parables, Gupta is currently the director at Toilet Board Corporation in Europe.
Vida Salvateur is now looking to raise a fresh round of funding of about Rs 1 crore to go into production.

How the device works

Motobuddy’s technology can be paired with a mobile handset via bluetooth. A mobile application has been developed already for this purpose and will be made available for downloads on Google Play Store and iOS App Store at the time of commercial launch. The user can then populate emergency contact numbers and personal health-related details such as allergies, specific medical conditions, and any existing ailments after registering on the app.

The basic reason for integrating the device in helmets is to motivate users to remember their headgear on every ride, Prateek explains. The device also emits a red light using LEDs, thereby enhancing the visibility of the rider on the road.

MotoBuddy Smart Helmet

In case of an accident, the IoT-enabled device detects it but doesn’t send out an alert for 30 seconds. During this brief period, if the accident isn’t serious, the rider can cancel the automated activation process. If the alerts aren’t cancelled, the device sends out a message to the nearest hospital with details of the accident, its intensity, and location. Based on this intelligence, the hospital will be able to send emergency services, either an advanced one or a basic ambulance, to the accident spot.

Motobuddy is working on developing a network of hospitals in Noida, in other parts of Delhi- NCR, and eventually across the country. The company is also in the process of onboarding emergency ambulance service providers into its system, says Prateek, adding, “In case the nearest hospital is not in our system, our executives monitoring the system will call and inform a hospital about the incident. If the hospital doesn’t act within a set period of time, the system will send another message to alert the next-nearest hospital.”

The device simultaneously sends out a message to the rider’s family and friends entered as emergency contacts, with all relevant information about the accident.

The way ahead

The team has conducted on-road trials over the past month, with 25 of the chips tested on the road already. The data from these rides and simulated accidents has been fed into the system and analysed, and the devices have been tweaked according to the findings.

”For instance, the motorcycle / scooter rider could experience a big jolt by running into a pothole or on irregularly shaped speed breakers. Such incidences could be misread by an ordinary sensor as an accident. To tackle this situation, special sensors have been designed to accurately identify accidents from incidences of jolts and bumps. Similarly, there are a few other things that are very unique to the smart chip/ device. I can’t share more details at this stage though,” he said.

The startup has applied for patents for the chip and the smart helmet about 18 months ago, and is likely to get them by the end of this year. These patents are India-specific as getting global patents would be a cost-intensive exercise, Prateek points out, adding, “However, once the additional funding comes in and the smart chip gets good traction in the market, we plan to apply for global patents and secure the intellectual property too.”

The company initially plans to roll out the smart chip priced at Rs 1,200, while the retrofitted helmet priced at Rs 2,500 will be introduced at a later stage. The company also plans to offer an AI-driven engine that will provide advanced driving analytics (ADAs), including driving speed and behavior, and location tracking.

An annual subscription-based service, ADA will be offered to Motobuddy users at a very nominal cost, which will be disclosed at the time of launching the product in the market. Future plans of VSIPL include tying up with general insurance companies and bundling a health and or a personal accident insurance policy to be sold along with the device/ smart helmet. This is being done mainly to facilitate cashless claims at various hospitals in the network. Taking the Motobuddy product and service offerings international also forms a part of the company’s business expansion plans.  

“We have streamlined everything that’s required to commercially produce the chip and the smart helmet. We should be able to hit the market within three months from receiving the funding,” he said.
(The writer is a Mumbai-based independent business journalist and has extensively covered diversified consumer businesses over the last two decades. He can be reached at hello@ashishktiwari.com)