The Malta Independent on Sunday yesterday carried an interview with the PN’s new tourism spokesperson Mario De Marco, who made a most valid point concerning the dangers of mass tourism for Malta.

De Marco said that one of the biggest challenges for tourism in Malta today can be summed up in one sentence: “let us not be the victims of our own success.”

“In other words, the biggest threat to tourism is over-tourism, and it is also the over-development taking place in the country right now,” he said. He made a similar comment when speaking about tourism in Gozo.

“On Gozo, we must be careful not to be a victim of our own success here too. The scourge in Malta is starting to hit in Gozo.  If Gozo simply becomes a mirror of all the wrong things we did in Malta, then there will remain nothing unique there that will pull people towards it,” he said.

In this sense, he is correct.  Malta’s tourism industry has always been one of the most – if not outright the most – important in the country’s economy, and much has been done over the years, including by this administration, to attract more and more people to the country.

But now it feels like Malta is at something of a point of reckoning.

A recent survey carried out by the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association showed that Malta needs to attract around 5 million tourists every year in order to sustain the hotels which are built or which are planned to be built.  That is almost double the 2.7 million the country attracted in its record year, 2019.

Both current Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and De Marco agreed in separate comments to this newspaper that that number is unfeasible – an infrequent occasion where both sides of the political coin have agreed on something.

But that does raise questions on the hospitality industry.  Is the industry and how it is set to develop sustainable? How will all of these hotels cope if there is a clear consensus that Malta cannot aim for the number of tourists that they need to be able to operate? How many hotels will end up closing their doors?  What is the knock-on effect that would have on the country’s economy and employment market?

These are all important questions to ponder and which need to be given due attention, especially in order to prevent any consequences that may abound from their answers.

Make no mistake: it is a good thing that Malta has no plans to attract that many tourists.  Contrary to the popular saying, you can have too much of a good thing, and that amount of tourists in a year will put far too much strain on Malta’s already stretched infrastructure.

That type of mass tourism will also inevitably lead to the loss of Malta’s charm, a key part of its tourism product.  Malta is an island marketed as an idyllic Mediterranean destination – a calm place, to wind down.

Overcrowding it – and some could argue that the country is already facing issues of population density – will only make it less appealing.

So let’s look at building on the positives of our tourism – but we must be wary of the consequences that mass tourism would bring to the island.