The Valletta sea passenger terminal has been a hive of activity lately as the Viset Consortium puts the final touches on the new terminal in time for the commencement of Star Cruises’ home port activities in Malta on 6 June.

Star Cruises is the world’s third largest cruise liner company, after Carnival and Royal Caribbean, and accounts for some nine per cent of the global industry’s carrying capacity.

The fact that Star Cruises has chosen Malta for home port operations has made people in the industry ‘stand up and listen’ and a number of other cruise companies are watching to see how the partnership develops before considering following suit.

Viset chief executive officer Chris Falzon said yesterday that works are “well on track” for the new terminal’s inauguration date set for 26 May. Mr Falzon was speaking at the annual general meeting of the Malta Cruise Network, a grouping of Malta’s cruise liner industry stakeholders.

Royal Caribbean will also be coming to Malta this year with one of its larger ships and Mr Falzon said that “hopefully we will be able to continue to attract these big liners”.

Jeffrey Cutajar from the Malta Tourism Authority added that it already seems as though Star Cruises might extend its programme in Malta by two turnarounds per year and that the prospects are looking very good. The MTA will be pulling out all the stops for the event and will be bringing down scores of travel journalists and travel agents.

The MTA, Mr Cutajar explained, has been vigorously advertising Malta as a cruise destination across Europe and it was applying a distinct focus on the UK, Germany, Italy, France and the Benelux countries by targeting selected media and underlining Malta’s unique attractions as a destination.

Chris Paris explained how, in 2005, Malta’s cruise tourists hailed from no fewer than 157 countries – the highest number of which were Italians, thanks to the activities of Costa Crociere, followed by Germans, Spaniards and French.

The UK, however, represented only six per cent of the total, which was worrying considering the fact that the UK, after the US, is the most important market for Mediterranean cruises.

Over 313,000 cruise liner tourists landed on Malta’s shores over 2005, representing a rise of 16.2 per cent over 2004. Projections for this year, he added, put the number higher, at some 360,000.

Malta is also experiencing longer cruise seasons, with visits in each and every month. Last year’s busiest month was October with 52,000 cruise tourists, while the Costa Crociere line was the port’s best client with 58 ship visits and 129,000 passengers – 41 per cent of Malta’s total throughput.

Julian Diacono, who forms part of a team at Malta International Airport looking into the cruise and fly concept for Malta, explained how destination Malta is something of a hard sell – compared with other destinations such as Cittavecchia, Barcelona and Venice – on the European, UK and North American markets.

A number of factors played a part including the fact that Malta is still virtually unknown in the essential North American market, that competing cruise destinations are far better funded than Malta in terms of promotional clout and the overall shabby image of Malta relayed to cruise tourists once they leave the environs of the sea passenger terminal.