VISET Malta plc said yesterday that the 2007 figures it had promised in December 2006 were in fact being delivered. “For this year, we are expecting an estimated 435,000 cruise passengers. This is a 10 per cent increase over 2006, which was a record year with 394,567 passengers,” said Chris Paris, general manager of VISET plc. He was speaking on board the Voyager of the Seas at Valletta Waterfront.

VISET plc has managed to rebuild the interest of the cruise industry in Malta, following the 2004 loss of the main competitive advantage – Malta’s tax free status – prior to Malta joining the EU. While this resulted in a bad year in 2004 with only 269,714 passengers, that loss has now been made good. While in 2005 the Malta cruise industry recovered 43,897 passengers over the 2004 figure, in 2006 the recovery improved by a further 80,956 passengers or 124,853 passengers over the 2004 figure. This year’s figure is expected to be 60 per cent over that for 2004.

“2007 has also seen the comeback of Pullmantur to the Port of Valletta, with their cruise liner, mv Sky Wonder following an absence of four years,” said Joshua G. Giordimaina, of the Marketing Department. The majority of cruise operators present in the Mediterranean region have used Malta’s port infrastructure as part of their itinerary. Operators like Costa Crociere, MSC Crociere, Aida Cruises, Holland American Lines, P&O, Swan Hellenic, RCCL and Celebrity Cruises, Silverstar, SAGA, Oceania Cruises, Princess Cruises, Transocean Cruises; just to mention a few, have become frequent callers, some of them all throughout the whole year,” he said.

The bookings for 2008 are flowing in steadily and next year, Norwegian Cruise Lines will be making their first visits to the Port of Valletta. The latter will visit our port on a weekly basis with their Norwegian Gem.

Transportation is one of the key factors that make the destination of the Valletta Waterfront and the Port of Valletta a success. “Since our last meeting last December, we are pleased to report that transportation has in fact improved. The scheduled bus service is running smoothly with quite a large number of passengers using the reasonably-priced public transport for their trip up to Valletta. Since its inception in December, it has carried over 50,000 passengers.” said Mr Paris.

The taxi operation was also doing well and the government’s new proposals are set to make the transportation system even more efficient. “VISET hopes that sea cabs and water taxis will soon be in operation. Quality is the only advantage that Malta has over other destinations and we need to sustain our competitive advantage.

“VISET is also looking forward to welcome other modes of transport, namely the trackless train. We are informed that the government is considering a tender process. We expect that MTA keeps supporting us to bring about more change,” he said.

Speaking of quality, the Valletta Waterfront has seen an influx of new services which again enhance the overall quality of the product.

This month, VISET welcomes the launching of the service of the seaplane, being operated by Harbour Air. The main services are a tour of the Maltese islands and links with Gozo. “However we feel that this service could be further exploited by introducing it as an air excursion.”

The open-deck bus is set to be a popular service for tourists. A tour with an open-deck bus, during a typical beautiful Maltese day, around the Grand Harbour area, is not only a unique way for passengers to take in all the sights offered by this open air museum, but also an opportunity for Malta to showcase its historical and cultural heritage to a captive audience of potential future holidaymakers.

Professor Edward Scicluna said that Malta was noted as an attractive port of call but nobody was stopping them from expanding into other branches of this successful and growing industry.

He hoped that his presentation would serve as a wake-up call to discover the job-creating profitable opportunities on our doorstep. It was time for the authorities and major industry stakeholders to look seriously into developing a more comprehensive and detailed economic impact assessment for the cruise industry – similar to the ones made with regard to the mainstream tourism industry.

This would help all players, not only to understand the contribution of the cruise industry, to quantify it, and seek how to make it more competitive, but more importantly try to identify those opportunities for additional real value-added for Malta’s national economy. In short, to make a concerted effort to focus on the cruise industry as an industry in its own right.

Starting with a general overview of the global cruise market, Professor Scicluna said that this has more than doubled over the last 10 years, reaching 14.5 million passengers in 2005. Europe’s share stands at 22 per cent and was continuously growing. The three top international regions were still the Caribbean, Northern Europe (the Baltic), and the Mediterranean, although new areas were striving hard to launch their own industry.

“The growth during the last three years in terms of cruise ship visits was modest. What is perhaps more interesting are the changes to the visits’ seasonal patterns with expansion of the first (October-December) and second quarter (January-March) at the expense of the third quarter (April-June). For Malta, this is a long-term objective to spread tourism as much as possible over the months,” he said.

In 2006, Malta reflected the growth patterns of Mediterranean cruise passengers by a notable growth in all quarters. This was encouraging but what was more encouraging was the outlook as read by the cruise liner companies themselves and translated into a fatter order book for shipbuilders. As at mid-May 2007, no fewer than 33 new ships were on order.

Malta was not alone in investing. Other Mediterranean ports were investing in port facilities:

• Spain: Barcelona, Valencia, Palamos, Malaga, Cartagena, and Almeria

• Italy: Venezia, Ravenna, Cagliari, Bari, and Genoa

• Cyprus: Lemosos

• Croatia: Dubrovnik, Split and Zadar

• Greece: Volos

• Corsica: Ajaccio

• Gibraltar

• Turkey: Antalya and Kusadasi.

The traditional ports on the French Riviera (Nice, Cannes and Villefranche) were constantly improving reception areas to deal with the larger numbers.

Malta’s share of this European market stands at 2.6 per cent with 336,500 passenger visits in 2005, which is quite good considering that the top six counties – Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Norway, and Portugal – were all multi-port countries. Malta’s business at present was as big as Gibraltar’s and Cyprus’s together.

He said that over 50 per cent of passengers on European cruises embarked from Italian and Spanish ports. Malta’s port accounted for one per cent of European embarkation. The nationality profile trend of cruise tourists visiting Malta was also changing. While the UK participation was decreasing, Italian and German tourists were growing in numbers.

Seventy-nine per cent of Europe’s EUR8.3 billion direct expenditure goes to the top five countries (Italy, UK, Germany, Spain and France). Malta is next behind the top ten with an estimated total direct spending of EUR93 million amounting to 1.1 per cent.

“The 400,000 or so visitors figure should be seen not so much for what they spend only, but for what impressions visiting cruise passengers gain as to repeat their visit, ideally for a longer duration. It is known for example that the time-share industry pays the airfare of a potential client just to increase the chances of selling him/her time-share accommodation.

In the cruise liner industry, the passengers pay their own way to sample the island for a few hours. Like an instant cake, all we need is to add water,” said Professor Scicluna.

As regards the level of satisfaction, looking at various surveys, this looks impressively high; however one should note that most cruise passengers will be coming back from North Africa.

A better indicator may be the unsolicited comments made after the visit.

Thus for example, out of 350 unsolicited comments made to the surveyors, about 100 were positive with the rest negative. Professor Scicluna asked: “Is this the norm – human nature or a dangerous pointer?”

Also, most passengers are visiting only Valletta.

Only a small percentage add Mdina and to a lesser extent the Three Cities to the local itinerary.

“If we know this, it would be sheer irresponsibility not to give Valletta its due investment to make it a top Mediterranean city – a showcase for the rest of the island,” stated Professor Scicluna.