So much food for thought emerged from the two speeches delivered during a business lunch organised by the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association last Wednesday.
On the one hand, MHRA president Josef Formosa Gauci once again painted a gloomy picture of the industry that has formed the basis of the Maltese economy for so many years, pushing the government to do more in a bid to reverse the trend.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi admitted that Malta has not done enough and that it needs to do much more for tourism to get back on its feet. He however remarked that measures to improve the tourism product would be useless if certain tourism operators gave the country a bad name, describing this as “not acceptable”.
Both Mr Formosa Gauci and Dr Gonzi are correct in their interpretation, but by passing the buck around and blaming each other we will not get anywhere and the industry will continue to suffer.
Everyone stands to gain from a healthy tourism industry, and therefore all the stakeholders must play their part – and play it well – in the prevailing circumstances to enable Malta to overcome the difficulties that it has been facing.
Soon after the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, it was said that the local tourism industry had suffered the consequences that other nations had to face at the time. But, since then, other destinations have picked up a better rhythm that Malta has so far failed to achieve, and this has affected our overall performance.
Mr Formosa Gauci pointed out that the government had planned to increase the number of tourist arrivals by 50,000 every year over a three-year period. But the first two years have passed and the targets have not been reached: between 2005 and 2007 the government forecast a growth of 150,000 visitors but to date “with 10 and a half months to go, we stand at minus 30,000”. This means that the current projections for this year indicate 180,000 fewer tourists than the government was aiming for.
This is a mighty blow, and the government should quickly find out what is going wrong and try to rectify matters to stop the slide. Dr Gonzi pledged the government’s full support to the industry last Wednesday, but at the same time one cannot simply blame those operators who do not behave responsibly for the difficulties that are currently being faced.
Of course, operators who abuse tourists through over-charging or arrogant behaviour are not being helpful at all, and everything possible should be done to punish the perpetrators. But the government does have to carry part of the blame for the difficulties that the tourism industry is up against.
The government has made its own mistakes too, and it should stand up and be counted for the wrong decisions that have been taken. Mr Formosa Gauci mentioned one of them, the decision to advertise Malta on CNN, and luckily Malta was now “back in the print media and also beginning to show up on the right type of TV channels”.
The MHRA president went one step further when he pushed the government to ensure that Air Malta is given the necessary support to restructure and compete. “It is no secret that Air Malta must restructure to survive and any union that blocks this process must be held responsible for the damage”.
This is a rather bold statement, one that will not go down too well with the unions representing workers at the national airline.
While the MHRA does well to keep the government on its toes on the matter, it would do well to also look within and see how its members could improve the services they offer to visitors. They must also understand that they have their own part to play in making Malta more competitive to tourists.