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COMMENT: Shacks are like restaurants... but need a more long-termvision (Kazi/Siqueira)
Shacks are like restaurants... but need a more long-term vision
By Saltanat Kazi & Alito Siqueira This paper aims at understanding the conflict over tourism and resource use and its implication to policy through a case study of beach shacks in Goa, more specifically in two villages in North Goa, namely Calangute and Candolim. It begins by a definition of shacks with reference to restaurants and their differences, and goes on to see how shacks have come to prominence at the beach as an industry and how the development of shacks led to conflicts and the emergence of policy. Beach shacks are like restaurants and are a part of the food and beverage sector of the tourism industry. The term like is used to emphasis what distinguishes shacks from restaurants; these features are as follows. * The location of shacks on the beach -- just above the high tide line on public space. * The temporary nature of shacks, which are on the beach only during the tourist season from mid-September to end-May and cater mainly to tourist. * The structure of shacks, which have a rustic appearance as they are built of organic material such as wood, bamboo and matted leaves etc. The use of these materials is due to the temporary nature of these structures as well as its location as it comes up within the CRZ area. * The services provided at the beach shacks have a post-modernist nature for the following reasons: (a) blurred distinction between front and back, and inside and outside of the beach shack (b) an informal relation between tourists and shack owners and staff; and (c) personalised or customised service. Shacks compete with restaurants in hotels for tourist revenue and are preferred for some of the following reasons: * Shacks serve food and drinks on the beach itself. * Shacks relieve tourist from the heat and the sun as they are the only structures on the beach. * The food served in the shacks is said to be cheap and fresh. The food is cheap in shacks as they have less overheads than restaurants and hotels. The freshness can be put down to greater dependence on local village markets for food supplies and less dependence on cold-storages. * Shacks offer a personalised service. Unlike hotels where waiters change with shifts, shacks have the same person throughout. This leads to familiarity and a bond between the client and customer, and may instil a feeling of security in the tourist who is in a foreign destination. * Customers may be surprised with complimentaries and be offered or themselves offer and return such gestures. This is quite in contrast to restaurants in hotels where the staff are uniformed, interacting formally with customers, and decisions regarding complimentaries and discounts are taken at higher rungs in the hierarchy. * Being adaptable, shacks are quick to change in response to changes in demand. For instance, in North Goa shacks cater to a younger tourists with a more active night life of parties and discos. This adaptability may be attributed to the type of ownership and having close kin among the staff. Prior to the development of tourism, somewhat similar structures on the beaches protected fishermen's boats in the non-fishing season and some provided them with shelters in which to sit and sew or repair their nets. Some were also used by beach visitors for shade. With the growth of the beach as a site for local summer recreation, beach shacks emerged from the mid-20th century on. Beach shacks now provide a range of services in terms of multi- cuisine food, snacks and drinks. In addition to this, they provide relevant information on available facilities and sometimes also provide them. The development of beach shacks is closely associated with the development of international tourism in Goa. This is due to the difference in the gaze of the domestic and international tourists. The domestic tourists and the international tourists experience the beach differently. For the domestic tourists, the beach, the water, and the popularity of the place, are of greater relative importance, while for the international tourists, being on the beach and feeling the water, the sand and sun are what the experience is about. Hence, the international tourists spend far more time on the beach and at beach shacks as compared to the domestic tourists. Beach shacks in India need to be licensed as the beach is a public area and the state is empowered to maintain this status quo. Hence, the government grants a temporary license to allow shack owners to set up beach shacks in the tourist season. Beach shacks were first licensed by the local village panchayat and in most cases favoured applications from the village itself. After 1995, the state government licensed beach shacks, more specifically, the Department of Tourism. This allocation of shacks has become a controversial issue, as there is much profit to be had from them. But obtaining a license comes for a price. Unlicensed shacks have been a cause of concern to the government, the hotels and restaurants and other licensed shack owners. It is a cause for government concern as illegal shacks over-crowd the beach, while hotels and restaurants and other shacks suffer unfair competition by the undercutting of prices. Illegal shacks have come up either because of a lack of vigilance by the tourism department or panchayat or because interference from local politicians has prevented the enforcement of rules. Such interference has been an expression of local political intention to pander to a vote-bank. To counteract political interference in this economic allocation, the High Court in Goa directed the state government to allot licenses in an impartial manner. In response, the state government started allotting licenses on the basis of a lottery system. However, such a system increases uncertainty and has resulted in dummy candidates contesting. Further, it leads to a market in licenses -- either the sub-letting of the lease at an additional price, or obtaining the license for speculative purposes. This system fails to guarantee a license to traditional shack owners for whom shacks were a means of livelihood. As mentioned earlier, beach shacks in Goa have come into conflict with hotels as they vie for the same tourist. Restaurants of hotels are one of the main sources of income for hotels. When guests patronise the shacks, this income is lost to the hotel. Hotels that have access to the beach put up structures, and organize beach parties close to the beach, and may even discourage their guests from visiting shacks. In order to attract customers, shacks come up close to the beach-front hotels. The closer a shack is to the hotel, the more is its business potential. The location allotted to the shacks is also determined by lots, this has resulted in internal re-adjustment by licensed shack owners amongst themselves. It is the location factor that has resulted in shacks getting clustered more at the beach access points and close to hotels. How do shacks compare with hotel and other restaurants in terms of their use of coastal resources? Both have a demand for land. While the average land area under shacks ranges between 40 to 300 sq. meters, that for restaurants ranges between 25 to 3000 sq. meters. (COASTIN Survey 2000, 2001). However, unlike restaurants and hotels, shacks are temporary structures. Hence hotels and restaurants tend to more permanently change land use or land cover. The flip side is that the temporary nature of shacks may lead them to have fewer systems for waste management. Shacks operate only in the tourist season and owners are not certain that they will get a license in the subsequent season, or occupy the same location. So, incentives for good practices are missing. Typically, shacks pay the local village panchayats a fee for garbage collection while obtaining the license; however there is no collection from the shacks on the beach. In the absence of organized collection, shacks dump their waste into pits in the sand, or throw it behind the sand dunes. Shacks have no water connections on the beach, and thus compelled to employ workers to carry water to them. This is probably why less water is used by shacks in comparison to restaurants. The survey showed that, on average shacks use around 8 litres per table per day, whereas restaurants use around 64 litres per cover per day. Dependence on well water by shacks is more than 69% and for restaurants it is 51%. Piped water accounts for 31% and 41% respectively for shacks and restaurants. Restaurants would hence exert greater pressure on ground water on account of their consumption needs, which is eight times that of the shacks. Hotels and shacks compete not only for the same client, but also for resources. These conflicting demands have had an impact on regulatory policy which reflects power politics at play. Some of these effects can be seen in the clauses of shack licenses: * Application for licenses prohibits cooking of food although warming or heating of food is permitted. Shack owner resent this clause and have had occasion to take up the matter with the tourism minister. As it is evident that food is cooked at the shacks without any hinder from the government authority, this suggests that the clause was inserted to appease the hotel lobby. * Clause 4 of the terms and condition 1998-99, state that shacks should not come up in front of any hotel property. There are certain eligibility criteria for the applicants, which are nonsensical when viewed in the economic context of shacks. The eligibility criteria require applicants and their families to be unemployed. Given that shacks require a minimum investment of Rs 50,000, this results in either false statements regarding employment status or the putting up of dummy candidates who fit the prescribed criteria. Government policy towards the shacks has generally been post facto or reactive in nature. It was only in 1995 that state government took over licensing of beach shacks because the number of shack on the beach had increased. This has resulted in the formulation of policies without enough deliberation. Government policy reflects trade-offs between various issues such as political considerations (maintaining their vote banks in the locality), social welfare (applicants should be unemployed with low income but must at the same time be able to invest in the activity), promotion of tourism (regulate the number of beach shacks) and appeasing the hotel lobby. A more long-term vision is urgently required. -- Kazi is research associate with TERI-Goa, while Siqueira is Lecturer associated with Goa University's Tourism Study Group. Email: and This paper was earlier published by TERI, The Energy Research Institute. |
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