This week the news was focused on the ongoing parliamentary "debates" and arguments.  I have felt for a long time that the key stakeholders in tourism need a catalyst to get on with things instead of talking and debating! The stakeholders include the Authorities, the Business Community, and the Local Community.  In 2006, together with a number of friends and academics, I set up the Malta Tourism Society (MTS)  as that platform that would bring tourism into the public view instead of limiting it as some socio-economic industry based on the activity of the authorities and the business community and their focus on quantitative results and economic growth.  The Society was to create an awareness of tourism as a sociocultural activity that would lead to a sustainable, responsible, and community-based activity.  Since then, evidence and research have shown this is possible.  From 2006 to 2013 the Malta Tourism Society was affiliated with the European Union of Tourism Officers (EUTO) with the Chair of MTS being nominated as Vice President of EUTO and another committee member for MTS nominated on the EUTO Board.  Our work in developing a broad tourism activity across Europe was working through annual study visits and conferences.  Since 2013 the MTS has been working on a research project with the theme:  Discovering Malta and Gozo Through its People and Culture - Meet the Locals, a community-based tour attraction focused on six localities in Malta and promoting the faces not the places. Since 2009, the MTS has published over 25 academic papers and book chapters about the findings from the research.

 Now the MTS is looking to you and inviting you to join the Society and participate in discussions, lectures, workshops, and conferences that can create the basis for policy papers that consider an alternative way of managing tourism today and tomorrow.

The time has come for action and the stakeholders must work together, they must be committed, they must build trust between them and they should develop sustainable and responsible tourism in an integrated manner. It is time that we all show what being responsible is all about, the world is in turmoil today because the politicians, world leaders and our local authorities are far too engaged in puffing up their egos instead of being responsible. So here are six reasons why you need to consider joining the MTS and working with us in putting tourism right, implementing the principles of sustainability and promoting the UN- Tourism Global Code of Ethics (1999) that ensure a responsible activity:

1.       The MTS will welcome all those interested in creating a qualitative, sustainable and responsible tourism activity, whatever your education, career or business focus.

2.      We will assign you to focus groups, action groups where you consider that you can contribute successfully and effectively.

3.      You will be one of our key participants at our workshops, lectures, discussions and conferences - we will listen to all those attending, and we will not just put on a theatrical act of simply hearing instead of listening to your voice and suggestions.

4.      MTS will continue to act as a focus point for research and action for tourism, with your participation.

5.      MTS will work on best practices that our members will describe and discuss, we will learn together and move on together.

6.      Finally, we invite you to send an email to:  The Hon. Secretary, Malta Tourism Society on [email protected].  Please ask for a membership form. There is a basic membership annual fee of ten euro.

By following these six stages, we can ensure that these islands are managed professionally, sustainably, and with the idea of developing a quality activity that attracts the visitor who wants to be here, not the one who wants to be here.  Travel and Tourism to these islands today is about quantitative gains for the greedy and uncouth.  We need to put professionalism and hospitality back in the equation.

Dr Julian Zarb is a researcher, local tourism planning consultant and an Academic at the University of Malta. He has also been appointed as an Expert for the High Streets Task Force in the UK.  His main area of research is community-based tourism and local tourism planning using the integrated approach.