Some media around the world have sought to make more out of the current situation in Malta than exists. The first culprit was Al Jazeera, which repeatedly fired from the hip throughout the evacuation process. There were numerous bogus reports involving phantom Libyan Navy ships in the Grand Harbour, an alleged attempt to defect by Aisha Gaddafi, immigrants pushbacks; the list goes on.

But while these were short-term concern issues which were swiftly corrected thanks to the local media, a new, far more important issue has come to light and that is scaremongering within the tourism sector.

Maltese nationals attending a conference in Sweden could not believe their eyes or ears when their international partners began to suggest that Malta was in a “warzone”. They frantically did their bit as honest citizens of Malta and tried to reassure Swedes that it was very much business as usual in Malta and that all is safe.

We also saw news items on CNN suggesting that an all-out war broke out near the Libyan embassy in Malta – again, the truth was stretched quite thin in that report.

Now, we are hearing murmurings from the UK about people opting to switch their holiday destinations due to the “worry of coming to Malta”. In addition, there has been some unrest in the language travel sector as students have cancelled their trip to Malta.

Of course, it is a double-edged sword. The expression “no smoke without fire” has an origin and the government and the Malta Tourism Authority will have to tread a very thin line in formulating a strategy to prove that there is no cause for alarm and that Malta will continue to be a safe holiday destination.

To coin another phrase, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The authorities and media can harp on as much as they like, but the real proof will be given by tourists who do continue to visit Malta. They will go home and they will tell people that images of jets and missiles flying overhead are all conjecture and, at best, speculation.

Malta is doing the only thing it can do. It is trying to get on with life as best as it can, and there is nothing that can suggest that we should be doing anything different. The no-fly zone is in place. Coalition jets are patrolling the skies around Libya and they are knocking out Gaddafi’s military assets left, right and centre. In addition, there is a NATO blockade on the Libyan coast, so there is hardly any risk at all to Malta.

The Prime Minister and the Opposition leader have said that they will remain cautious on the Libya issue. But, we must head off this threat to the tourism industry. It is also a challenge because we must go out of our way to improve the tourism product even further. We cannot allow the international media to drag us into the ‘warzone’. Malta is a few hundred miles away from Libya and life goes on as normal. Perhaps the government ought to invite a few media organisations over to judge for themselves.