Last Wednesday, Comino made the headlines in London's Express. Under the title "Panic in Malta as beautiful island overrun with 10,000 tourists a day" Emily Wright discusses over-tourism and its impact on the Maltese Islands.

Overcrowding at Comino is one of the symptoms of over-tourism. In fact, it is much more than that: it is also the direct result of mismanagement of our resources as well as outright greed.

I have written a couple of articles on over-tourism in these columns over the past months. It is however always pertinent to go back to the Deloitte study on tourism capacity published by the Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA), published around three years ago when discussing over-tourism.

Entitled Carrying Capacity Study for Tourism in the Maltese Islands, the Deloitte study already, in 2022, pointed out that commitments towards the development of tourism accommodation were substantial. From the Deloitte study it follows that we will shortly be in a position of oversupply of touristic accommodation. Close to 5 million tourists per annum would be required at an average 80 percent occupancy of hotel beds in order to utilize adequately the accommodation already in existence as well as that approved by the authorities but still in the pipeline.

This is a 40 per cent increase over the inbound tourism of 3.56 million tourists recorded in 2024.

The situation is most probably even worse than indicated by the Deloitte study, as the study does not factor in B&Bs accommodation.

It is thus no wonder that a turismophobia is slowly building up as a result of this over-tourism. Malta is not immune from this. It will in the near future inevitably follow in the footsteps of our competitors in order to bring some sense to tourism and address its impacts.

Swieqi, for example, was in the news some months ago in respect of blocks of flats in residential priority areas illegally converted into tourist accommodation. Swieqi is one of the various localities which are experiencing a short-let rental craze. This places a tremendous strain on the locality's infrastructure and on the services which it provides.

This is the direct result of the prevalent lack of adequate land use planning. It has been repeatedly emphasised that the Planning Authority has been transformed into a permitting authority which issues development permits without adequate consideration of their impacts on our localities. The Malta Tourism Authority has followed suit as it continuously licences short-term business in residential priority areas without in any way consulting our local councils.

Swieqi is one of the victims of this short-term craze which is directly linked to the development of over-tourism in the Maltese Islands. It is not the only victim. Many other localities are in similar waters.

Barcelona is one of several cities across Southern Europe where, in the past months, residents have demonstrated against over-tourism and its impacts. Higher housing costs are one of these direct impacts. Residents all across southern Europe are being squeezed out of residential priority areas to make way for short-lets. The authorities are unfortunately accomplices in all this.

Over-tourism is leading to an unsustainable strain on infrastructure and housing as well as basic locality services is disrupting the delicate balance between tourism and day-to-day life for residents.

It is about time that the Malta Tourism Authority and the Planning Authority are brought to their senses. Their lack of responsible operation has brought all this about. Time to clean up.

An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta.  [email protected] ,   http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com