We have just returned from our third holiday in Malta in so many years, so obviously we like your country a lot otherwise we’d not visit so often. However, we had a very unsavoury experience in a shop on our last trip and it all but ruined our holiday.
I am a professional artist and I intended making it a “working holiday” drawing and painting scenes of your very beautiful island and the work would be part of my Spring Exhibition here at home entitled ‘Travels through Europe’.
Consequently, I was so delighted when I came across an art shop at the top of Republic Street which seemed to be stocked with very good class materials and I went in with the intention of buying upwards of e300 of specialised equipment. I was looking at a jar of acrylic base gel when it accidentally slipped from my hand, the assistant immediately said that I must pay for it and would not listen to my apology.
My wife and I refused to pay and left the shop in disgust. The assistant ran after us shouting that we must come back and pay, hinting that she wondered what other stuff we might “have done while in the shop”.
We asked her to call the police which she did. We were then subjected to the public humiliation of being questioned by the officers in front of other customers until eventually I said would pay, not the full price of e6.99 but a token gesture of e5 to quite literally get out of the place. I should say that the two young policemen were courteous and friendly and appeared to me to be almost embarrassed by the whole thing. I do not want to pursue this particular incident any further and I am only telling it to illustrate a very irritating part of your otherwise idyllic little island and that is the absolute rudeness of your shop assistants. I’ve had my change thrown at me, experienced sullen indifference and a complete lack of any customer care. Contrast that with the staff in your restaurants and hotels who are the most friendly and helpful I have seen anywhere in the world. I could honestly say that in a small or big café we were treated and looked after superbly by smiling waiters both male and female.
They actually appeared to want our business unlike their fellow citizens in any shop we visited.
Malta, like Ireland, needs tourists to come in numbers because the money we spend when we arrive is an integral part of your overall economy. You have a beautiful place, the pace of life is perfect and the sun shines for most of the year but do not ruin it all by almost resenting our presence. We are visitors, holiday makers, young and not so young attracted to your lifestyle which we only get to enjoy for a few precious weeks of the year. Welcome us! Don’t resent us and we will come in our thousands. Finally, remember in your shops we are customers, we should never be treated like nuisances, pay attention to our needs when we are in your stores and we will repay you over and over again, and so when we visit Malta again soon, we look forward to seeing smiling not scowling faces
Ray and Joanne Kennedy
Dublin, Ireland