Students who come to Malta to study the English language in language schools are set to receive €10 per night spent in the country, Minister for Tourism Clayton Bartolo announced.
This comes after the minister announced that the country will be open for tourism in June. Furthermore, new schemes were introduced to encourage tourism in Malta as well as to aid businesses in the tourism sector, including through the waiving of agencies of the Malta Tourism Authorities (MTA) licence fees for 2021.
This will lead to a total of €1 million spent, with the government expecting to generate €7 million in return. The eligible students are those who spend at least 15 nights in Malta to learn English at language schools. This is capped at €300 per student, so any student who spends more than 30 days studying in Malta will still receive €300. The vouchers will be given upon the students' arrival in Malta through the language schools.
These vouchers can be spent in all shops which use the voucher system pronounced by the government. Applications will be open from next Monday and interested schools should apply with the MTA. The scheme will be open from 1st June.
The application process will require the English language schools to submit a number of documents to the MTA so that there will be the checks and balances in place to assure that it is successful, the minister said.
A copy of the airline booking, dates of arrival and departure, details and length of course and individual details of the student who will benefit from this scheme will be requested, among other things. Once the verifications take place, the voucher will be sent directly to the schools so that they are passed on to the student.
The minister also announced that in the coming days, a webinar will be hosted by the MTA to further explain this scheme.
The English language school industry has suffered a huge blow, with the pandemic leaving them on their knees due to lack of students arriving from abroad. This is what the new scheme seeks to address, the tourism minister stated.
"Tourism is the lungs of the Maltese economy... we have been trying to see how we are going to recover in this sector from the very start, and with the incentives we are introducing weekly, we are trying not to leave anyone out," Bartolo said.
The tourism minister also remarked that Malta should expect to know whether it will be included in the UK green list tonight.