A tribute is due to Winston Zahra Jr for not mincing his words about the poor performance of the Tourism Minister and the Head of the MTA, who keep acting as if all is well and in order when, in fact, our bread and butter industry is slipping from bad to worse.
Those who earn their spurs in the private sector know that there is no space between success and failure. You either deliver or you don’t. Those in charge of our tourism are not delivering, even on their own set targets, quite apart from the fact that such targets are probably irrelevant.
Frankly, I think tourism is too important for it to be left in the hands of politicians and their politically appointed acolytes. They seem to have no idea of what it takes to truly turn around this basic industry where we have natural advantages to compete. Even the signals being given by the market, clear as they may be, seem to be escaping them as they continue to play the tourist numbers game, which is irrelevant at worst and tangential at best for the true cure of the tourism malady.
This is an industry into which our best entrepreneurs have invested their huge millions to make it work. They have put their money where they mouths are and, unlike ministers and civil servants, a lack of success will burn holes in their pockets. They just cannot afford to fail, and consequently work their guts out to ensure that they remain at the refreshing end of the industry rather than at the discount end, in which the numbers game played by politicians for their short-term ambitions anchors us in mediocrity.
The fact that five-star hotels are showing growth when all the rest are struggling demonstrates that only those who invest in order to keep their product fresh can win in a game which is being played by many other countries offering formidable competition.
The Zahras have invested in several outfits, the latest being The Golden Sands. Tribute is also due to the Decesares, who have invested to give us Inter-Continental, and the Pisanis of Corinthia, who gave us their own brand, which they are building at international level through selective investment in emerging economies.
But probably the biggest tribute is due to George Fenech, the owner of the Tumas Group, and his family, and Charles Polidano of Caqnu fame. These are the people who seem to attract the most ire from those who are prepared to accept anything but success.
When George Fenech was seeking administrative approval for the Portomaso project, including the Hilton Hotel, the Business Tower and the Convention Centre, he was made to look like the biggest villain in town. The offensive screams of protest at that Mepa public hearing still ring in my ears. For developing land that was owned by him until 2114 anyway, he was made to look like a speculator using public property for personal gain. Who remembers the hunger strikes organised outside Castille or the personal obstruction of pseudo environmentalists chaining themselves to earth-moving equipment on site? I am sure they had no idea what they were protesting about.
Today, that Portomaso is a completed reality, providing a sample of what we could be if we could raise the whole island to comparable standards while preserving the historical treasures with which we are abundantly endowed, and no one seems to doubt the wisdom and the vision of those who inspired this investment.
Investing in a five-star hotel project is not a piece of cake. It is not for those seeking the quick buck, like the many who convert old buildings into concrete boxes for quick resale. The payback is long and arduous, and depends on continuous investment and efficient organisation in all its dimensions – from marketing to operations.
Caqnu Polidano has invested beyond comparison to have a large contracting organisation capable of handling mega projects. He has also poured money into his own investment projects, including the newest St Julian’s Meridien and other diverse interests – from cinema to winemaking. All this is not for the faint-hearted or for those who expect a quick return for their money.
While foreign investors were offered priceless land for free in order to construct hotels, which in many cases they failed to do, cashing in on a quick profit by selling out to Maltese investors – as in the case of the land on which the Zahras built the St Julian’s Radisson – Polidano and Fenech were made to pay top prices to acquire public land for hotels they built on Gozo and at Marfa.
Clearly, entrepreneurs do not invest out of love for their neighbour. They do it for profit, plain and simple. Unless they can see a good profit at the end of the line, they will not do it, and if they do, they will not be around for long, because in business the alternative to success is failure.
Being a nation of traders rather than producers, with a strong inbuilt trait for a quick buck and fast turnaround, such investors who can eye quality and invest for the long term are a rare species who deserve all our encouragement and appreciation. Branding Caqnu Polidano as a “baruni” confuses true entrepreneurs, who succeed in spite of the obstructions, with those who create bureaucracy to slow down our true entrepreneurs and force them to beg for what should be easily accessible.
If society should demand something from tourist entrepreneurs, it is for them to search and appoint a CEO for our Tourism Authority who can truly engineer a turnaround in the medium term. No quick fixes, no numbers game, but plain and simple restructuring, starting from product development, going to product packaging, brand building and effective marketing and ending up with sales to clients who can perceive full value in our offerings and who will pay a price that will permit us to make a profit to be reinvested to keep our tourist product fresh and bubbly.
It would have to be a CEO who cares nothing about his Minister’s demand to produce instant success, and who understands that brands can only be built on products packed with value and quality. Trying to build brands before achieving the necessary quality standard can only lead to the simple truism that effective marketing kills a bad product faster than bad advertising. Before we aim for the numbers, we have to aim for an all-round leap of quality in our tourist products beyond the walls of our top hotels.
The numbers will then take care of themselves and the brand will be built through an effective marketing strategy and, more importantly, through the daily delivery of our promise that will lead to satisfied clients and word of mouth recommendations, building the soft aura surrounding hard branding.
www.alfredmifsud.com