The 26th placing Malta obtained in a 124-country survey carried out by the World Economic Forum specifically on the tourism industry is not a bad result at all.

Considering that Malta has done better than other more established countries, including direct competitors in the region, the results should be encouraging for a sector that has been struggling for quite a few years now.

But the results of the survey show that Malta, while doing well in some sectors, needs to pull up its socks in others as ultimately the negative factors are eroding the positive aspects.

The good points are in safety and security, where Malta ranked 16th because of the low levels of crime, while the high density of doctors and good health services put it in 26th place in this regard. Advances in information technology placed Malta 11th in this sector while tourism infrastructure is also one of Malta’s best assets, placing the country in 12th place. National tourism perception is also high in Malta (16th place), while the greatest advantage for the tourism industry in Malta is the government’s extensive budgets, which gives Malta a very high fifth placing in this particular area.

But this is as far as it goes in terms of positive results, because Malta needs to improve other areas in order to be able to continue competing in a globalised market.

For example, matters are not so rosy when it comes to air transport infrastructure (42nd place), human resources (43rd) and natural and cultural resources (44th). The scenario is even worse in ground transport infrastructure, with Malta placing 60th in this sector.

Yet what pushed Malta’s overall ranking down was certainly the 109th place obtained in price competitiveness.

These results come as no surprise. We all knew the importance the government gives to the tourism industry, that our health services are good, if not excellent, and that we have made great strides forward in the ICT sector.

We also knew however that our public transport system is not as efficient as it should be, that Malta is at a disadvantage because it is a small island and that we still need to do more in environment matters.

We should keep on building on the positive points that have been mentioned and work harder on the others that have been deemed as detrimental to our tourism industry.

Our greatest hurdle is price competitiveness, something which we also knew about, but perhaps few expected Malta to rank so low – only 15 countries out of the 124 that took part in the survey did worse than us in this regard.

Again, being an island does not help, as most tourists have to come over by air, and air transport, including taxes, is quite expensive. But, leaving this aside, we must also admit that Malta has become increasingly expensive for tourists (and locals too) and this is no doubt affecting our competitiveness.

Let us face it – in spite of our history, our archaeological heritage and our warm climate, Malta is not Paris, Rome or London. And therefore we cannot expect to be competitive if our prices are similar, or just marginally cheaper, than what you will find in these and other top destinations.

This is something that the World Economic Forum pointed out in its analysis about Malta. Malta will be facing stiffer competition from its main rivals unless it succeeds in mitigating its competitive disadvantages that relate to the lack of: the preservation of natural and cultural resources, effectiveness of marketing and branding campaigns, air transport accessibility and, in particular, the lack of price competitiveness.

Malta’s overall standing in the survey was positive, but there are clear signs that unless matters are improved in the areas indicated by the WEF, our position will not be so high in the years to come.