The Malta Tourism Authority together with the Malta Communications Authority recently worked together on an initiative aimed at enhancing on-line visibility. The project entitled WebCheck was specifically aimed at assisting hotels to improve their online presence.

Roderick Marmara, senior technical specialist at the MCA, highlighted that the tourism industry was chosen because, "it is one of Malta's strongest economic pillars and therefore it makes good business sense to invest in the industry".

The MTA saw the potential of this initiative to boost hotels' online visibility and assisted the MCA in seeing this project through. In all 31 hotels from four-, three- or two-star categories, as well as guest houses, participated in this project. After having their web presence professionally assessed, each hotel received an individual report with suggestions on how to improve their online presence.

The closing seminar was recently held at the Westin Dragonara Hotel, where the general findings were presented and case studies explored. Furthermore, a booklet with findings and suggestions entitled, Navigating the Web was produced and distributed by the MTA and MCA in order to disseminate the main findings of this initiative.

In his closing speech MTA CEO, Paul Bugeja pointed out that, "With 70% of travellers booking their holiday or part of online, it was increasingly important for hotels to improve their online presence to ensure they remained competitive and to be abreast of the latest trends in this ever-changing industry".

The MTA aims to continue building on this initiative by exploring the possibility of introducing an award for online presence at the Star awards as well as organising other training seminars with experts from this field.