Christmas and New Year’s bookings in restaurants within the local community remain in full swing for the holiday season despite the rise in Covid-19 cases and the pending arrival of the Omicron variant in Malta.
President of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) Tony Zahra told The Malta Independent on Tuesday that he has seen no cancellations of restaurant bookings in the local market which were out of the ordinary, however, since the situation is fleeting, this could change easily.
“We do not have any visibility that there have been unusual cancellations, just a cancellation here and there, which is normal,” Zahra said. “However, the situation is a moving target,” he said, adding that things can shift relatively quickly.
On the other hand, the situation is completely different when it comes to accommodation bookings from tourists arriving to Malta, he said.
“Since other countries have been reintroducing and enforcing their own restrictions, accommodation bookings in Malta from abroad have dried up completely,” Zahra said.
386 Covid-19 cases were reported by health authorities on Tuesday, it being the second highest tally since the start of the pandemic back in March 2020.
Numbers of Covid-19 cases have been skyrocketing around Europe, particularly with the Omicron variant being more transmissible than the original variant, as well as the Delta variant.
The Nationalist Party has consistently been calling for the enforcement of safety measures against Covid-19, such as more airport measures set in place to avoid the threat to the vaccination program and herd immunity.
Other nations across Europe have reimposed heavy restrictions in attempt to curb infections, with some reintroducing curfews, tightening travel restrictions, cancellation of upcoming holiday events, the closing of all schools and universities, with the Netherlands even going as far as another lockdown. Meanwhile, Malta has not done the same.
The only restriction Malta has reintroduced is the wearing of masks in all public spaces while continuing to administer and promoting booster jabs. Health Minister Chris Fearne said that it is to be expected that the Omicron variant arrives to Malta in the coming weeks. Fearne noted that the safety measures are calibrated in real-time, as the focus is to look at infected individuals being admitted to hospital, adding that the numbers are still low.
Answering the Malta Independent’s questions a few weeks ago, the island’s national airline Air Malta said that 2021 has been a difficult year for the airline, with it being characterised by depressed and fluctuating market demand across all the airline’s main markets. The entity said that there was an increase in the market of 2021 compared to the one of 2020, however it is still behind compared to that of 2019.
Several e-mails from airlines have been sent out over the past few months promoting cheap flights in attempt to increase outbound travel from Malta, scrambling to recuperate from the pandemic.
The Malta Tourism Authority has recently announced a strategy plan up until the year 2030 in effort to recover Malta’s tourism industry from the blow it took due to the pandemic. The strategy plan may as well remain in shambles if the pandemic brings on wave after wave.
Malta’s only restriction, in an effort not to “disrupt” the economy, remains the enforcing of wearing face masks outside, whilst putting a great emphasis on the booster vaccine, which Fearne maintained that it is the solution for Omicron.