The months of summer are now over. Gozo will slowly return to its peaceful self with its relatively slow pace. Gozitans, particularly those involved in the commercial sector, will look back to the previous few months and evaluate the proper level of activity that they were involved in

They will in turn assess the health of their operations and plan for the future months. They know that for the next few months things will be tougher in terms of business as the number of arrivals to the island will decrease substantially during the shoulder and winter months.

Figures released by the National Office of Statistics indicate that on a national level the number of tourist arrivals for the first eight months of this year has been satisfactory. The official figures regarding the performance of the operators in Gozo have not yet been released, so we have to wait a bit longer to have a good look at the figures. Nevertheless, the Gozo Tourism Association has already released its survey covering the first half of 2012. This survey is generally very indicative of the performance of the sector and the results are often confirmed by official figures later on.

In this survey, conducted among its members covering hotels, self-catering accommodation establishments, restaurants, diving centres, transport services, tourist attractions as well as conference and incentive travel and tour agencies, the Gozo Tourism Association asked questions about the performance of the tourist establishments during the second quarter of 2012.

The results from the survey are not very encouraging. Almost half of the respondents termed the performance of their establishment during the second quarter of the year as ‘bad’, while slightly more than a quarter qualified their business performance as ‘fair’. One in every five, stated that the business was ‘good‘, while only 2% of those who replied declared that the first quarter’s performance was ‘very good’.

When asked to compare their performance to the corresponding period of last year, six out of 10 respondents classified their business performance as inferior to last year’s, while three out of 10 declared that the establishments’ performance was on the same footing of 2010. Only one in 10 respondents declared that the going for April to June 2012 quarter was in fact ‘”better” than that from April to June 2011 quarter.

The Gozo Tourism Association members were also asked to assess their profitability during the second quarter. More than half (60%) of survey respondents stated that their business profitability was “bad”, one-third declared that it was “fair”, while only one in 10 of respondents answered that it was “good”.

The businessman in Gozo has somehow built a remarkable resilience in operating in difficult and unfortunate circumstances. Circumstances which are further compounded by the inertia of present administration. When some form of action was taken by the authorities, more often than not this proved to have an inbuilt ability to make matters worse.

Some of the examples of the almost unique ability of the current administration to mess up things range from the chaotic handling of the roadworks leading to Ċirkewwa to the unmitigated chaos that prevailed for months in Victoria during the reconstruction of the main road. Indeed, one is left to question the wisdom of undertaking almost at one go all the roadworks in Gozo at the height of the tourism season. This without stating that the works took more than one year to complete, during which time the everyday life of Gozitans was badly affected.

When the roadworks seemed to have been finished, we were treated with a surprise, albeit quite an unpleasant one. Part of the road leading from Għajnsielem to Victoria is closed again to traffic and will remain so at least until the end of October. This after it emerged that there were “potential problems with the gradient of the main sewer”.

This is just one case in which mismanagement and lack of planning is overwhelmingly evident. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated case and forms part of a long series of such cases.

Another recent example in mismanagement relates to the installation of a buoy in the bay of Xlendi. This buoy which was installed with much fanfare last year with a cost of €238,230 has been used only once or twice since then. The problem with this buoy is that it is too small and too close to the beach resulting in complaints by ship masters that engines could not be switched off because the ships drag anchor. In April last year, the small cruise ship Spirit of Adventure, which had planned to use the buoy, had to move to Mġarr because of unfavourable weather conditions.

Unless the administration starts dealing seriously with the issues impinging negatively on Gozo, things will not improve. Gozo will simply continue to be a hostage of the circumstances.

Dr Refalo is Labour spokesman for Gozo