“Wildlife Tourism in Goa: An Overview”

Abstract

Goa’s wildlife tourism is a rich reservoirs of biodiversity with a bewildering range of plants and animal life.  Goa is now taking a forward leap into wildlife tourism.  It provides a natural habitat to a range of birds and animals in the midst of rich vegetation, well preserved bird sanctuary and five wildlife sanctuaries. An array of soft wildlife activities in Goa are now available and are increasingly popular among domestic as well as foreign tourist. A number of tour operators have made this niche segment as their sole business and their numbers are proliferating by the day. Today even tourists are seeking holidays that caters to their desire for thrill, make-believe action and exhilarating experiences. It is an area with great tourism potential, with wildlife tourism at the leading edge of development. The Government of Goa is facilitating the diversification of tourism product from traditional ‘leisure tourism’ to ‘green tourism’. The entire range of protected forest area offers the most amazing array of biodiversity, an important natural resources for ‘alternative tourism’. It has been found that newer destinations attract more tourists such as backwater tourism, eco-tourism and wild life tourism and it is emerging as the popular ones among the tourists. The Forest Department has taken initiative to promote wildlife and eco tourism to enable people to see and appreciate the rich biodiversity of the forests in the State. It is found that many of the wildlife tourism products were poorly marketed by the government. The present paper provides an overview of the wildlife tourism activities in Goa.