Tourists headed to Goa will soon be able to book a wide array of tourist services online to avoid the trouble of having to haggle with operators as a web portal is set to be launched for the same which officials claimed is the first—of—its—kind by a tourism body in India.

The e—commerce portal that is to be launched by the Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) will allow tourists to “easily make their bookings in bed—and—breakfast units to starred hotels, heritage homes to watersports, music festivals to restaurant bookings, cooking classes to heritage sites, walking trails to river cruises“.

In a statement here, a GTDC spokesperson added that “all possible tourism trade activities will be covered on the portal”. The website is expected to go live shortly.

More than 100 local tourism trade operators have aligned with GTDC to be marketed on the platform.

“This will be the first venture of its kind to be launched by a tourism organisation in India. GTDC will make available a variety of Goa Tourism products on one platform,” said GTDC Chairman, Nilesh Cabral.

“This is an opportunity for locals to generate revenue through this portal, thereby making it beneficial for the residents of Goa and tourists alike. The suppliers will need to register under the GTDC web portal to avail... the opportunity to market their products and services,” Cabral said.

The online portal, which would be parallelly accessible as a mobile application, would be available in six foreign languages —— Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, German and French, in addition to Hindi and English.

It is expected to be backed by a 12—hour call centre service that will make the process of booking and query resolution simpler.

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