The programme of activities is being coordinated by the Malta Tourism Authority’s Corporate Communications and Business Development Division on behalf of the Tourism and Culture Ministry.
A photographic exhibition entitled Tourism enriches: Individuals, families, communities and all the world, has been organised by the MTA in collaboration with the Malta Photographic Society, under the auspices of Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech.
The exhibition, sponsored by Air Malta plc and SAS Radisson, will run until 8 October at the MTA’s head office, Auberge d’Italie, Merchants Street, Valletta, from 9am to 1pm, Monday to Friday, in September and from 9am to 4pm in October. The minister is opening the exhibition today.
Dr Zammit Dimech will be visiting various hotels in Malta and meeting employees in the tourism industry. He will later deliver a message on PBS television at 7.10pm.
Air Malta will be holding a draw for two free tickets for its route network (except Stansted). Passengers on these Air Malta flights will be notified that they can enter the draw by the airline’s cabin crew.
Heritage Malta will extend the free entrance usually available for Maltese nationals on the last Sunday of the month to individual tourists to celebrate the occasion., with the following sites being open to the public free of charge: Hagar Qim, Malta Maritime Museum, the National Museum of Fine Arts and Ta’ Kola windmill in Gozo.
In addition, individual tourists purchasing tickets to the State Rooms at the Presidential Palace will also be given free admittance to the Armoury and each 50th visitor will receive a free copy of Heritage Malta’s 2004 and 2005 calendar.
VISET plc and MTA are organising an In Guardia parade, to salute the 3,000 cruise-liner passengers in Malta on the day. Visitors will also be given a glass of Maltese wine and Kinnie.
The MTA has acknowledged, with thanks, the contribution of the following organisations to World Tourism Day programme: the local councils of Naxxar, Sliema, Xaghra and Zejtun, St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation, The Malta Experience, the Mdina Dungeons, Limestone Heritage, Mediterraneo Marine Park, Poezija Plus, the Corinthia Palace Hotel, Diveshack scuba school, Britannia College, Merlin Car Hire, Edrichton Holidays Ltd, The Barcelo’ Riviera Resort & Spa, Crowne Plaza, the Dolmen Resort Hotel, Howard Johnson Diplomat, Howard Johnson Mediterranea, Island Hotels Group, Marina Hotel, Mellieha Bay Hotel, Paradise Bay Hotel, Plevna Hotel, Corinthia San Gorg, Corinthia Marina, Radisson SAS, Suncrest, Hotel Santana the Sunflower Hotel and the Xara Palace – Relais & Chateaux, as well as the following restaurants: Bacchus, Medina, Tal-Kaptan, Sun & Surf, Barracuda and Nostalgia.
“This year a record number of stakeholders are participating in the World Tourism Day programme. There is no doubt that more people and organisations are endorsing the message that tourism benefits all, and that we all have an important role to play in this industry,” said MTA Corporation Communications and Business Development Division manager Leonard Zammit Munro.
“Our tourism awareness campaign has come a long way since the MTA first publicised and promoted the fact, way back in 2000, that tourism is responsible for 40,000 jobs and a quarter of the nation’s economic activity – facts which are today common knowledge and quoted on an almost daily basis,” he concluded.