It is part and parcel of the Gozo Ministry’s strategy to develop Gozo as a sports venue. This fits in with our broader policy to brand Gozo as an island where one can find tranquillity, peace and relaxation in an increasingly hectic and restless world. One by-product of this strategy is the development of sport tourism, a fast-growing sector of the global travel industry generating $600 billion a year, which involves either observing or participating in a sporting event.
One particularly successful sport in Gozo has been diving. Scuba diving in Gozo has been voted the second best diving destination in the world in 2014 by Diver magazine. Gozo has one of the most incredible underwater environments and this has been enhanced by submerging ships in our waters as an underwater attraction for divers.
The Ministry for Gozo has set up a Gozo Sports Board to promote people’s interest in sports and to encourage participation in the widest possible spectrum of disciplines. We want Gozitans to be active in sports from an early age. This has generated a robust diving tourist sector including the setting up of various diving schools.
To achieve this we need associations which organise sporting activities and the task of the Gozo Sports Board is to organise these associations. At the same time we want Gozitans to become aware of these associations and to use them. Sport coupled with a healthy diet is the only way to fight obesity which is a fast-growing problem in Western Europe, with Malta unfortunately at the top of the list.
To raise public awareness on the importance of sports, we have dedicated a weekend to all types of sports. Gozitan and Maltese sportsmen will meet in various sports disciplines ranging from football, horse riding and baseball to gymnastics, badminton, car-racing, spirit combat, sparer, rugby and even the flying of model aeroplanes. The latter will create a spectacle, with large models flown from the heliport by Maltese enthusiasts who will spend a whole weekend in Gozo.
We are helping various associations financially to encourage Maltese sportsmen to come to Gozo and share their experience and talents with Gozitans and at the same time encouraging them to stay in Gozo and thus help the Gozitan economy, even through their family and friends who accompany them for a weekend in Gozo.
In fact, 20 football nurseries from Malta came this weekend to play against Gozitan nurseries, apart from baseball and rugby teams, among others. This is only the first of sport weekends which we intend to organise in the future which we would like to see as an annual event for Gozitan sportsmen.
I would like to take this occasion to thank the Parliamentary Secretariat for Sport and the Maltese Sports Council which are collaborating with the Gozo Sports Board to organise these activities; as well as the Tourism Directorate of the Ministry for Gozo that have financed this sports weekend.
We as a Gozo Ministry are well aware of the future trends in sport tourism. This is why we are entering into a partnership with the private and third sector and introducing innovation and creativity in our event production. We are also engaging volunteers, creating a resource of local event makers and ambassadors to create future events with the direct help of both the national government and the Gozo Ministry.
This is why Gozo is becoming known as a new and emerging destination in the sports industry.
Dr Refalo is Minister for Gozo