This week the news was focused on the infrastructure, the traffic, the unsustainability of our projects and the development of the quality of tourism. I gave a chuckle at this potpourri of conflicting subjects - how can we seriously talk about developing quality tourism while we have such a chaotic state of affairs in the traffic, the building works, the unnecessary projects?  We need to sit down together and reason this chaos together.  We can never be a quality destination if we do not put into practice sustainability, responsibility, and a serious long-term tourism plan based on the integrated process. 

How can we tear up all our roads destroy our traditional houses, develop our natural landscape and allow more private vehicles to the island than there are residents?  The time has come to be responsible and rebuild our tourism diligently not chaotically. We need professionals to do this work not amateurs!

Tourism planning is not a political job, neither is it a short-term one; it is one that requires all stakeholders - local authorities, the community, and businesses, to communicate, consulting continuously and consistently. You have driven yourselves into a corner here, the forcefield created by the erratic and unplanned development and the tourism industry has left this island begging for visitors purely based on price and availability - you are receiving tourists who are hardly the quality visitor, visitors who are not in the least interested in culture and history but in crude entertainment, leisure, and cheap food and beverage.

There was some talk about reducing two and three star hotels and increasing the four, five star levels.  There are two arguments here:  A quality destination is not measured on the star rating of accommodation and any destination needs two or three star accommodation that can offer homely and more personal service and hospitality.  If you seriously want to start to develop a quality destination this will not happen overnight, there has to be a radical change in governance and an understanding of tourism.  But let me summarise these points in my six-stage analysis below:

1.       Learn to plan tourism by listening to all stakeholders, working with the stakeholder not for them.

2.      Create focus groups, and workshops on a permanent basis to include all stakeholders not a few, selected people.

3.       A tourism plan must belong to all stakeholders not to a political group or business sector.  It must be the result of real dialogue not autocratic leadership.

4.      Tourism is a socio-cultural activity that must create an environment of hospitality and service not a marketplace for cheap and tawdry products and services.

5.      Tourism is the result of diversity and uniqueness not of copying experience from other destinations.

6.      Finally, remember this old Glaswegian statement about a destination: People make the destination - YOU make the destination.

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.