Hotels are full, but restaurateurs are complaining. Hotels are full, but tourist guides are complaining. So there must be something that is not right in the tourism industry in Malta. For how can one explain this anomaly? Either we have tourists or we don’t.
But then again it is easy to explain: we say that we want to attract upmarket, niche tourism, but we are only attracting students and the low-budget tourists. Hotels have convinced themselves that accommodating students guarantees room occupancy, and their shortsightedness has tarnished the industry because other guests only have complaints about the rowdiness of these young guests.
The Minister for the Environment had promised us that no excavation will be done in tourist zones, and yet his promise was ignored and excavation is going on at a fast pace in all tourist areas such as Bugibba, Qawra and Sliema. Most of them are also opposite or next to hotels, such as the works that are going on at present at Tourist Street, Bugibba, in front of Hotel San Antonio or the other excavation that is taking place in the hub of Bugibba, a few feet away from where our President has his summer residence. This confirms that there is no co-ordination and no teeth to enforce this moratorium for the summer period.
There is now a tendency for group arrivals to bring with them also a tourist guide and so much of the work is being done by the foreigners. Moreover, these teach-yourself tourist guides are still rampant in our historic sites: no wonder that a friend of mine, who is a licensed tourist guide, told me that to date, this summer she only had one day of guiding and had to go and earn a living by teaching English to foreign students.
Low-budget restaurant owners (and blue-eyed ones) in Bugibba say that it is thanks to the Maltese who move there for the summer recess that their business has picked up. We see tourists in Bugibba but most of them come on a package holiday, which includes meals at their hotel. Needless to say, the Maltese customer remains always the best client for the restaurants in Malta.
And what about the jungle of prices that exists in Malta, and how every tourist keeps telling you that Malta is very, very expensive? They are right. Imagine: a hamburger at Paradise Bay is LM3, an ice tea is LM1. Is this not expensive? Prices have to be controlled and the issue should no longer be associated with leftist measures. Free market does not mean that daylight robbery. Nowadays, it is no longer a question of shopping around, as the present President of Malta used to tell us when he was Prime Minister. It is no longer a question of shopping around because cartels have been formed and they dictate the prices.
Mind you, these cartels are all against the rules of the European Union but our government and Brussels have still not realised that Malta is not in a position to control these cartels because the Office of Fair Trading is not properly manned and cannot cope with all the complaints received.
Heritage Malta does not seem bothered about the state of Valletta, our capital city: it is filthy, dirty, dusty and dangerous to walk in. From a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen, we are rendering it a city built by gentlemen for scavengers. Its mayor lives in Cloud 9 and does not see the dirt and the dust that we do. Lately he even compared Valletta to a bottle of champagne. But even tal-Lira sells champagne! Now he promised us funding from the EU so that we may finally walk safely on the pavements of Valletta.
He knows and admits that he does not have the money to do the maintenance that is needed but he keeps his mouth shut. He uses the money available for the benefit of the residents and not the commuters because that is where the votes come from. He knows that the capital city has been badly hit by the Park and Ride scheme but he keeps silent and ignores the plight of the business community and of the professionals whose livelihoods depend on Valletta.
There is therefore clear indication that there is no concerted effort so that all the stakeholders work together to improve the tourism industry in this country. Every organisation, ministry, department, local council, has its niche and only works to protect its niche without taking into consideration whether that work will badly hit the efforts and work done by the other. It is useless for the Malta Tourism Authority to promote Malta and spend millions in advertising when we are not delivering what we promise.
The members of the MTA board are dragging their feet too much. They see all these faults going on around them but keep silent. They know that the MTA can apply for funding from the EU but they do not take action so that the MTA applies for such funding. I know that even this year, the MTA has again not taken advantage of this opportunity and did not submit any proposals for funding from Brussels. But as long as the MTA is happy and the Minister is happy with MTA, who cares that so far we have lost millions of euro from Brussels – money that we so badly need to boost this industry?
Gonzi seems to have given up as well: the committee he set up rarely meets and the hopes and expectations we all had after the resignation of Lungaro Mifsud have faded because nothing has changed at Merchants Street, where the MTA, resides except that it has become dustier and filthier.
People tell you that Labour always made a better job out of this industry and it is a shame how the government does not have the willpower to make the changes that are needed to gear this industry at the right pace. Faces replace faces, but tactics remain the same: your job is secured not by how much you deliver but by your affiliations.
Tourism is a very volatile industry and unless we treat it as such we shall always continue to have this crisis in the tourism industry in Malta.