Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday Malta needed to do much more in the tourism industry. “We have not done enough and more still needs to be done,” he said, addressing a business lunch, where he pledged the government’s full commitment to the industry and more investment.

The business lunch was also addressed by Josef Formosa Gauci, president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, who said that with a 100 per cent increase in tourist arrivals from Italy and a 23 per cent increase from the UK, low cost carriers from new routes such as from other airports in the UK, as well as from Germany and Spain, should be explored.



On the tourism figures, Mr Formosa Gauci said that the original government forecast for 2005 to 2007 was a growth of 150,000 visitors but to date, “with ten and a half months to go, we stand at minus 30,000. There is therefore still a very long way for the industry to get back on its feet”.

He said that as the MHRA had predicted, 2006 was a gloomy year for tourism, with tourist arrivals, and nights spent, going down by four per cent and tourist expenditure also going down by 1.2 per cent.

Dr Gonzi said that in addition to heritage, hospitality and diversity, quality was the extra ingredient which would make Malta a unique tourist destination and lead to Malta achieving sustainable growth in the tourism industry.

The Prime Minister said that introducing measures to improve the tourism product would be useless if certain tourism operators would then give the country a bad name through bad service. Describing this as “not acceptable”, Dr Gonzi added that “quality and excellence in what we do, across the board by all stakeholders” was the way forward for the tourism industry in Malta.

He said the government was totally committed to the industry, shrugging off comments that Information and Communication Technology and the financial services sector were substituting the industry as the main pillar of the economy. Dr Gonzi said the tourism industry was the “cornerstone” of the economy and that the government was “fully committed” to working closely with tourism operators.

The Prime Minister said Malta had made great strides in the tourism sector in the past but greater strides were needed in the future. “We have not done enough and more still needs to be done. In a continuously changing scenario (such as tourism) we surely cannot rely solely on our achievements,” he said.

Dr Gonzi said Malta’s tourism product “is as good as we make it” and that “the industry can only grow if the government and the private sector pull in the same direction”.

Looking back at 2006, the Prime Minister said that several developments took place that year, especially the much talked-about introduction of low cost carriers. He said these airlines brought “some growth” with encouraging figures for November and December and with further positive results expected also this year. However, he said, there was a cost to low cost operators. He said Air Malta and all other carriers should remain central to Malta’s policy direction and that “overall dependency on just one airline is not in the

country’s interest”.

Speaking about the goals for the tourism sector, Dr Gonzi said that one of the government’s main goals was to continue to improve the country’s general infrastructure with more investment in the product, the country’s history and the environment. Another major goal is the maximisation of the benefits of the introduction of the euro which, he said, was important for the industry as it was for the country.

Thirdly, he said, the country had to reap the benefits of the Malta Tourism Authority’s restructuring process so that a bigger share of its budget would be used for marketing and promotion. Another goal was that of human resources development through European Union programmes.

Mr Formosa Gauci said 2006 also saw a change in the people at the helm of the MTA and added that “this time round the MTA chairman was appointed with widespread support from various players”. In a swipe clearly criticising the decision of the previous MTA chairman to advertise Malta on CNN, Mr Formosa Gauci said that Malta was now “back in the print media and also beginning to show up on the right type of TV channels”.

He also spoke about the importance of the communication channels between the MTA and the MHRA and emphasised that the proposals in the tourism plan should be implemented.

On low cost carriers, Mr Formosa Gauci said that in December, there was a 100 per cent increase of tourists from Italy and a 23 per cent increase from the UK. He said that other routes for low cost carriers needed to be opened in order to attract more tourists from other countries such as Germany, Spain and from other airports in the UK.

At the same time, he said, the authorities needed to take the required decisions to exploit this market and ensure that Air Malta was given the necessary support to restructure and compete.

“We are not suggesting over protection but advocating the political courage to take the decisions that need to be taken for Air Malta to be able to compete and survive in the long term. It is no secret that Air Malta must restructure to survive and any union that blocks this process must be held responsible for the damage it will cause not just to the national airline but to the whole industry,” he said.