Nautical tourism involves activities like sailing and boating on vacations. It is gaining popularity in Europe and America as tourists seek new exciting ways to spend holidays. Goa, India has great potential for nautical tourism given its many beaches. Developing small marinas with facilities at beaches could support yacht, boat, and water vehicle rentals for tourists. This could provide new tourism offerings like yacht charters and jet skiing beyond current water sports. With over 30 lakh annual tourists, capturing just 5% with nautical tourism could bring an additional 150000 tourists, further establishing Goa as a top global destination.

1. NAUTICAL TOURISM
Subhakar Rao

2. Nautical tourism is all about enjoying activities
like sailing and boating on a vacation. The concept is
gaining lot of popularity in Europe and America.
As tourists are looking for new and exciting ways
to enjoy on their holidays - nautical tourism is a great idea
to cater to these discerning tourists.

3. Why GOA for
Nautical Tourism?
Just have a look at the map of Goa and
the number of beaches in the state. Potentially
all these beaches are great business opportunities
to develop nautical tourism.
With government’s assistance these beaches can
have small marinas as a depot for yachts, boats and
other water vehicles for tourists with all the necessary
facilities.
Currently, we have mostly water sports as offerings to tourists.
We can here provide yacht charter, sailing, and latest jet skiing
as new and exciting tourism offerings.

4. As per the provisional report issued by Goa Tourism in 2013,
Goa witnessed around 26-27 lakh domestic and around
5 lakh foreign tourists. Together, this put the total numbers
30 lakh tourists in a year.
Even if someone try to capture 5% of this tourist inflow with
Nautical tourism, that’s a cool 150000 tourist roughly. Meanwhile,
apart from the regular beaches, nightlife, DJ parties – this will take
Goa to the next level as the top tourist destination, not only in India
but in the world as well.
The potential
New Opportunity Areas
In the recently concluded CII Conference on Goa
Nautical Tourism, I have emphasized on many untapped
potentials of Goa which we can include in our new
tourism offerings.
For example, Goa has stunning backwaters which can be
developed on tourism lines. There are already some
players in this field offering river cruise to tourists, but it
can be enhanced to completely new levels with
modern luxurious boats.

5. Goan Backwaters
Current river cruise, backwater
packages are mostly conducted on
Old boats which were mainly built for
Transportation and ferrying purposes.
With new boats, we can bring into
recreational activities like boating
on the backwaters, fishing
activities which will be more
entertaining and exciting for the
tourists.

6. Yacht Charters
Yacht Charter is one area where we can
become game changer if we play our cards
right. Yacht Charters need not be limited to
morning cruise, sunset cruise or romantic
cruise. By brining the modern yachts we can
actually serve luxury yacht charter resorts
where they can stay and cruise on the charter
for two – three days. So it will not limited to
just mere cruising for few hours but an ideal
weekend retreat.

7. Water Sports
Make the tourists spoilt for choice when it
comes to water sports. We have 36 boating
options for tourists, and we are going to add
many more. Boats not only which you can row,
pedal or ride. But boats with which you can
play, float and do something really exciting.
This kind of offerings are bound to take Goa’s
Tourism to the next level.

8. THANK YOU!