Goa: Why foreign tourists are turning away from India's party capital

Foreign visitors to Goa have nearly halved from their pre-Covid peak even as domestic tourism is booming.

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The beachside shacks and cheap backpacker hotels hugging the bay in the state often dubbed India's party capital are full with tourists.

What's different here from some years ago, though, is that the Europeans and Russians who once thronged Palolem and other beach villages of Goa are missing.

The crowd is almost all local, a reflection of the diminishing appeal of this tiny coastal state among foreign tourists.

The abundance of domestic visitors, on the other hand, shows that its lure has grown among people from far-flung corners of the country.