“The Malta Tourism Authority has appointed a committee made of representatives from FELTOM, MHRA, FATTA, and GRTU, and senior officials of the MTA in order to prepare together a report of recommendations for the government shortly.” said the Minister for Tourism and Culture Francis Zammit Dimech while visiting the EF Language School in St Julian’s.

The minister said that this year there was a great influx of foreign students to learn English. From research the MTA has done within 21 English schools it resulted that there has been an increase of 21 per cent in the number of students that visited Malta to learn English. If the results of this research are confirmed, this means that this year the number of students that came to Malta reached 80,000.

He was aware that these large numbers could also create problems, and in fact the MTA was drawing up a number of measures which will be discussed with representatives of the industry, and these measures are aimed at making sure there is enough accommodation available for short visits during summer. Schemes and other initiatives are being introduced with the aim of influencing the development of accommodation that provides for the needs of these students in the coming years.