As part of his presentation, Mr Cauchi gave a reassessment of the traditional markets of tourists who come to Malta. Tourists from the United Kingdom make up 41 per cent of the total tourist market who visit Malta yearly and until last April there was a decrease of 3.8 per cent. Although there was a significant recovery, according to the forecast for the end of 2004, the percentage is still below target.

German tourists so far make up 11.2 per cent of the market, and until last April there was a hefty decrease of 11 per cent. But there was a strong recovery and by the end of this year the number of tourists should go up by 10 per cent. Even though Italy is one of Malta’s closest neighbours, it only makes 8.4 per cent of our tourist market. There was a decrease of 6.6 per cent until last April and is still slightly below target. On the other hand, while only 6.8 per cent are French tourists, there was an increase of two per cent till last April. In fact, Mr Cauchi pointed out, there was a strong recovery as a result of teamwork by the MTA in this area and that it is well ahead of target.

One of the emerging trends is child and teen travel. Most families work around the services and commodities available for their families. Mr Cauchi pointed out that the rate of household income is accelerating in Europe and as a result more families are travelling. The outlook for global travel in 2004 is better than it has been in the past four years. Travelling today is completely different to what it was years ago. Nowadays holidaymakers have a wealth of information at their fingertips thanks to the Internet. In fact, “most destinations are having to re-evaluate their product offer and the way in which this offer is presented to the prospective traveller”. More and more travelers are “bypassing the traditional distribution networks and using the Internet to tailor-make their holidays”. Mr Grech further emphasised the importance of creating an appropriate campaign.

“This is an opportunity to be exploited,” Mr Cauchi said. Wellness and health spas are also becoming extremely popular. In Italy, 14 new health and wellness spas are being built specifically to cater for managers and high-level management. Mr Cauchi pointed out that this can be done in Gozo, which is an ideal spot to get away from a busy lifestyle.

It is extremely important to identify the marketing opportunities Malta and Gozo have. Mr Cauchi said Comino and Gozo should be fully exploited and that hype should be created about Malta’s sister islands and marketed accordingly.

The MTA has to become more flexible and relevant to the market’s demands and the industry’s needs chairman of MTA Chris Grech said. “During the past eight months we have worked at ascertaining and assessing the changes which have been taking place in the tourism industry over the last three to four year” he said.

Following a government request, Deloitte and Touche carried out a “process of internal analysis, whereby all action programmes were subjected to a thorough evaluation to determine their effectiveness, both from a strategic and cost perspective”.

The report concluded that “the current structure does not facilitate communication and there are strong indications of territoriality and a lack of coordination between directorates, which is simply unsustainable”. Mr Grech pointed out that the current structure is a great hindrance to working with “clear strategic focus”.

Previously, MTA’s marketing campaign worked around the “geographic importance of the market. The current structure of the MTA lacks the flexibility to adapt to the changes that have been taking place in the tourist business during the last few years”. However Mr Grech said that “the new way to attract is to achieve depth in the way MTA improves and develops the products and that the development of the segments is the key to our tourism industry’s future”.

The Deloitte and Touche report recommended that the structure of the MTA be radically streamlined into one cohesive unit led by one board of directors. It was proposed that there would be an organisation with two operating divisions, one with a regulatory function and another to cover marketing and product development. It was also recommended that the size of the board be scaled down and that it would include key officers in the organisation.

The new re-dimensioning of MTA is something which must be carried out in order to give Malta’s tourism industry a boost. Apart from directing the MTA’s revised structure and its marketing action, the plan would also serve to guide the government with regard to product improvement investment.