Each year, in the week that follows the Santa Marija feast, the government issues a statement saying how many people crossed over to Gozo for a brief holiday.

This year, we were told that more than 164,000 people utilised the services provided by the Gozo Channel shops and the fast ferry service.

Gozo Channel operated 700 trips between Monday 12 and Sunday 18 August, carrying 135,660 passengers and nearly 47,000 vehicles. During the same period of time, Gozo Highspeed carried out 220 voyages, carrying more than 28,000 passengers.

We were told that Gozo Channel did not stick to its usual schedule due to the high demand of travellers. The Ministry of Gozo described it as “a great week for tourism” for the sister island.

Like it always is, we may add, given that the Santa Marija week has been progressively linked to a time when many Maltese flock over to Gozo to spend a few days away from it all with relatives and friends.

But, we wonder whether it was truly “away from it all”, given that the problems that are faced every day in Malta were the same problems that visitors had to contend with in Gozo.

Some might have simply stayed in the residence they own or rented for the duration of their holiday, so their only issue was the amount of time it took them to board a vessel at Cirkewwa and one in Mgarr on the way back. But those who move around encountered traffic jams almost across the whole island, in particular in the heart of the capital city Victoria, as well as parking problems too. Which made it seem all too familiar, given that the same situation is the norm on any day in Malta.

Thankfully, the power grid held out, and no major electricity faults were reported.

There was a time when Gozo was so different from Malta. This is no longer so.

The government boasts about the numbers, which seem to be the only measure by which any success or otherwise is gauged. The same goes for the wider tourism industry, where it seems that the most important thing is to see that more and more tourists come over, and that we establish a new record every year.

The government does not appear to be looking at the bigger picture, which includes the pressure that all this is putting on the infrastructure. What is equally an important matter that is being ignored is the sense of suffocation that people are feeling, even when on holiday. We are sure that tourists who visit Malta are not too happy to spend hours looking out of a window on a coach they are travelling on. Neither are the Maltese too happy to have to endure so much distress while on holiday in Gozo.

An article published by the Associated Press this week described over-tourism as the “tipping point at which visitors and their cash stop benefiting residents and instead cause harm by degrading historic sites, overwhelming infrastructure and making life markedly more difficult for those who live there”.

In Malta, we have not yet arrived at the point of holding protests, but we’re not far away from that.