During the first quarter of 2005, 625,998 passengers used the Malta-Gozo ferries to cross from one island to the other. This resulted in a decrease of 30,448 passengers or 4.6 per cent over the same period the year before, the National Statistics Office reported yesterday.

The total number of passenger vehicles carried by the ferries decreased by 15,195 to 180,357 a decrease of 7.8 per cent over the corresponding period in 2004. In the quarter under review, 4,238 trips were made between Malta and Gozo; a drop of 232 or 5.2 per cent over the same period the year before. The MV Malita carried 271,895 passengers or 43.4 per cent of the total passengers in this period. The other two main Gozo Channel ferries MV Gaudos and MV Ta’ Pinu carried 211,238 and 142,865 passengers respectively.

The statistics led to a statement by the Council of the Gozo Business Chamber, which said it was preoccupied by such statistics and was even more concerned by the fact that such a decline continue during the months of April and May of this year. Statistics available on Gozo Channel’s website, indicate that over the first five months of 2005 (January-May) there has been a decrease of 27,193 vehicles and 64,463 passengers compared to the same period in 2004.

In its reply, the Investment, Industry and IT Ministry said there was an overall slight increase in passenger traffic over the year ending May 2005, when compared to the figures for the year ending May 2004.

In its statement, the Gozo Business Chamber said that “these alarming figures confirm the decline in the economic performance of the island region of Gozo, which the members of the chamber have been reporting these last months”.

The chamber also stated that this situation was regrettably envisaged in the report which the same chamber, together with the Gozo Tourism Association, commissioned prior to the increase in the fares of Gozo Channel in June 2004.

In its appeal, last month, to the ministry not to increase the Gozo Channel fares in June 2005, the chamber was met with derision by the same ministry who accused it of “lobbying its interests, even when these fly in the face of basic business and social tenets”.

The ministry, like the chamber, is now confronted by irrefutable figures which show an unprecedented decline in the number of passengers and vehicles. The blow played to the Gozo economy through the increase in the Gozo Channel fares has now been confirmed, the chamber stated.

It appealed to the same ministry to revoke, with immediate effect, the increases implemented this last year so that the sister island’s economy would be given the boost it direly needs. The decline in the number of vehicles and passengers is dealing the death-blow to the same Gozo Channel Company Limited, it stressed.

In a counter-statement, the ministry said that the Gozo Business Chamber attributed a reduction in the number of passengers travelling on Gozo Channel boats between 1 January and 31 May 2005 to the increase in fares introduced six months earlier on 1 June 2004.

The GBC must certainly realise that any possible negative impact of ticket price increases would have been registered immediately upon the introduction of such an increase, and not six months later, the ministry rebutted.

It has been a year since the ticket prices were modified in June 2004. It is now, therefore, possible to compare an entire year of Gozo Channel’s business after the introduction of the increased rates with an equivalent year before June 2004, the ministry said.

Gozo Channel has actually experienced a small increase in traffic as statistics for the period 1 June 2003 to 30 May 2004 indicate when compared to the period 1 June 2004 (the day the new tariffs were introduced) to 30 May 2005.

In the year ending 30 May 2004, 3,443,368 passengers travelled on Gozo Channel ferries while in the year ending 30 May 2005, the number increased by 4,580 to 3,447,948. There were 53,707 more passengers on Gozo Channel ferries in the first five months after the introduction of the new rates (July-December 2004) than in the same months of the previous year.

The decrease in passengers in the period which GBC has focused on (January-May 2005) is less than the increase in passengers during the rest of the year. This analysis, which the GBC neglects to make, also emerges from the same NSO figures that appear to have caused the chamber so much “preoccupation”.

The GBC chose to ignore that balance and again lobbies what it perceives to be its interests and in doing so, flies in the face of basic business facts, the ministry said.

As for GBC’s “appeal” to stop the three-year programme of price adjustments started in June 2004, the chamber should be reminded that no further increases in the prices of passenger tickets have been introduced in June 2005 or are being contemplated for June 2006.

The Gozo Business Chamber must surely be sensitive to the fact that the choice of a potential visitor to the island of Gozo on whether to do so at all, how often to do so and for how long, does not exclusively and solely depend on the price charged by the ferry boat, the ministry added.

The ferry’s price is certainly relevant but cannot be quoted as the last word on the Gozitan economy as the GBC seems to believe. Particularly so, when the facts and figures indicate that after a full year of increased rates, the passenger data can be clearly seen not to have been affected in any way by the prices.

The Gozo Channel Company certainly has a role to play to make the “Gozo package” more attractive to users, the ministry concluded.