Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association president Josef Formosa Gauci was very clear last week in his remarks about the tourism industry and its future.

Basing his comments on the results of an MHRA survey carried out in the third quarter of this year, Mr Formosa Gauci said that Malta cannot afford to register any more losses from its core markets, especially from the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

These losses, he said, coupled with lower flight capacity from these same markets, were the reasons behind one of the tourism industry’s worst performances in the past six years.

The results of the survey, carried out by Deloitte, show that tourist arrivals in the period under review went down by 6.6 per cent as opposed to a 1.5 per cent increase in the same quarter the previous year, while occupancy rates fell by six per cent to 85 per cent.

The negative trend was partially offset by longer average stays and improved room rates, but the results would have been more negative were it not for the large intake of foreign students who, said Mr Formosa Gauci, are however not the ideal people to occupy hotels during the core months.

The fact that there were 20.2 per cent fewer tourists from the UK, 15.7 per cent fewer from Germany and a 19.4 per cent fall in the number of French tourists is a clear indication that something has gone wrong. The 21.3 per cent rise in the number of Italian tourists and the 17.6 per cent increase in tourists from Scandinavia were not enough for an overall positive picture.

“Malta and Gozo just cannot continue to register such losses from its core markets and all stakeholders should endeavour to work more closely together in addressing the challenges being faced,” Mr Formosa Gauci said.

And he is right.

For many years, as the tourism industry boomed, the numbers kept increasing and more money was being spent, we thought that tourism was a golden goose that would continue to lay golden eggs no matter what.

But we did not take enough care to protect the industry, which employs a large chunk of our workforce and is one of the main pillars of our economy. As other countries close to us have moved forward and improved the package offered to their visitors, we have lagged behind and have lost much of our competitive edge.

The industry has been in decline for many months now, if not years, but it seems that we have taken too long to realise this. The Malta Tourism Authority has been restructured but

little has changed. Now we have a policy and plan for tourism that is planned to be implemented from 1 January.

Wide-ranging documents have been drafted during what has been called an “extensive internal consultation”, and the public consultation process is currently underway, coming to an end on Thursday.

We reiterate that this plan took much longer than necessary to be formulated, but then at the same time we believe that two weeks is too short a period for what Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit said would be a consultation process “as wide-ranging as possible”.

This timeframe may have been chosen because it has finally been accepted that something needs to be done as quickly as possible. But, on the other hand, it is hoped that, after losing so much time, we will not be rushing into implementing this plan without a careful and, to use the minister’s words, a “wide-ranging” exercise.

Malta needs to reverse the negative trend that it has been experiencing in the tourism industry, while our competitors in the Mediterranean continue to report better results. As Mr Formosa Gauci said, the MTA must now concentrate on its main role, that of marketing Malta abroad.