On Thursday, Clickair became the sixth low-cost carrier to begin operations to Malta with direct flights being offered to Barcelona.

This is welcome news on two fronts, firstly because it will bring in more tourists from the growing Catalan market, and secondly because it will also offer more choice for Maltese outbound tourists.

It is estimated that these six carriers will bring some 200,000 additional tourists to Malta this year and that this number is set to increase proportionally over time. Last year, four low-cost carriers began operations to Malta – Ryanair, Meridiana, Central Wings and German Wings. These immediately had an impact on incoming tourist figures and will continue to do so. However, while it is good to see that there are various new routes that are allowing better accessibility to Malta, we should not cut our nose to spite our face. Just as the MTA and the government came to the conclusion that Air Malta should be “protected” by not issuing calls for routes that would interfere with the schedule of the national carrier, we should also try to protect our new assets.

What do we mean? The world today is one of competition; no one can deny that fact for a start, competition is healthy. But we should not have over-competition that would drive one or more of these new “assets” out of our country. We are sure that studies have been made, and the fact that Ryanair operates out of Girona, some 100 kilometres from Barcelona, should not have any adverse effects on the operations of both carriers.

Meanwhile, it is heartening to see that the MTA, under the guidance of chairman Sam Mifsud, is once again pouring money into advertising Malta as a holiday destination outside of the country. In fact, some EUR200,000 were spent in Barcelona alone and Clickair’s management have in fact said that the move was a good one, in that Catalans seem to have Malta “on the brain” at the minute.

One hopes that this trend will continue, and in fact, the MTA is in the process of restructuring its overseas offices in the hope of attracting even more business to the islands. It seems that lessons have been learned. In the past Malta sat on its laurels, because it was always guaranteed business in the summer because it was a safe sun, sand and sea holiday. As we saw, as soon as the advertising was withdrawn, the business dried up and at a very fast rate. Even more interesting was the fact that even with a boost in advertising, Malta failed to recover. After gleaning many tidbits of information from sources, it seems that there is an optimistic feel that Malta and Gozo will see an increase in the number of holidaymakers visiting the islands.

We have also seen Malta strike up a partnership with the international PR firm Media Consulta. We are sure that this will pay dividends as we will be able to market our product more effectively and to a wider audience. However, the word product is key. We must be sure of what our product is and we must also make sure that we do not over market or make promises that we cannot keep.

Malta was, and always will be, a-love-it-or-leave-it destination. This is not a bad thing; it means that our country has an identity, a quirkiness that is appealing to some and not others. While we should strive to offer different value-added activities to our visitors, we should never lose that identity that makes us what we are.