Malta must offer tourists more value in their visits to the Maltese islands while respecting what local residents are willing to change, and The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry believes that this can be done if the government heeds its published "Rediscover to Align" tourism strategy.
Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, The Malta Chamber Board of Management and Council member Alan Arrigo said that the idea behind this tourism strategy is centred around "Managing a Sustainable, Authentic & Resilient Future" and aims to shift Malta towards higher-yield tourism.
The Malta Chamber argues that while Malta has experienced record-setting tourist arrivals in the last couple years, the country should evaluate the state of its tourism industry through a better metric: spend per tourist, adjusted for inflation.
Arrigo stated that authorities and tourism operators will strive to improve any metric being given the utmost importance. The chamber argues that while focusing on the total number of inbound tourists may promote a growth mindset, homing in on the average expenditure per tourist would prove more effective for the country.
Arrigo, who is a member of The Malta Chamber's Tourism Operators Business Section, said that prioritising tourist arrivals "would be growth for growth's sake" and "we must make sure that we have higher yield from various different niches."
In 2025, for the first time on record, over four million tourists visited the Maltese islands. However, the average length of stay for inbound tourists has decreased by 20% over the last decade, from 7.9 nights in 2015 to 6.3 nights in 2025.
Arrigo observed that while the expenditure per tourist, in nominal terms, is on the rise, when adjusted for inflation, this metric nowadays is actually only slightly higher with levels hit in 2019. He added that in comparison to 10 years ago, the inflation-adjusted average expenditure per tourist has regressed.
The Rediscover to Align report shows that the average spending per tourist in real terms was €919.09 in 2015 and €771.01 in 2025 - this marks a 16% decrease over the last decade. Overall, total tourist expenditure last year amounted to €3.9 billion.
Arrigo stated that is it in nobody's interest for Malta to become a high-volume, lower-yield destination for good.
The chamber argues that, with inbound tourists staying in the Maltese islands for less time, higher prices are required to keep the real average outlay per tourist up; however, to do this, tourists need to be offered more value for their money during their experience. The strategy calls for curated, authentic experiences to come in to offer Malta as a premium destination.
This month The Malta Chamber published its tourism strategy document, featuring 115 proposals on how to ameliorate the Maltese tourism sector, on Monday, 16 March 2026. The chamber hopes for the government to draft the policy document as is and executes all, or at least, most, of its measures, which aim to "extract the higher spending tourist to come to Malta."
"The idea is to align between all parties - operators, authorities, residents - to be able to get a higher yield from every tourist," Arrigo said.
"That's the idea of the whole document: not handling more but handling it better. If you handle it better, then you can give more value to the tourist. If you give more value to the tourist, they'll return, they'll come for longer, they spend more, etc.," he said.
He continued that the opposite also holds true: tourists "are not willing to be overcharged for something if they don't perceive value. So, if Malta is going to charge a higher price but not deliver on the goods," e.g., cleanliness and maintenance are found to be poor, then Malta would risk spiralling downwards in terms of value, towards lower-yield tourism.
Arrigo said that no single measure will do the trick and that the idea behind this policy strategy is to continuously improve the product presented to visiting tourists. The way the chamber proposes to go about this is by constantly renewing infrastructure while retaining the local feel and aesthetics, since "if it's not working for residents, it's not working for tourists."
"If you don't improve the infrastructure, you're not going to give more value per tourist and you're neither going to get more growth because it will remain at its peak till it starts to crumble. If it starts crumble, it goes in the opposite direction - negative value," Arrigo said.
When asked whether The Malta Chamber agrees with some NGOs' calls for carrying capacity studies to be conducted vis-à-vis Malta and hotspot areas, Arrigo answered that these studies only find how much footfall a specific area can handle before growing outdated. Hence, he repeated the need for infrastructure to be constantly renewed.
"Tourism is about other people visiting our culture. They want to have local feel," he said, "The local feel, residents' wellbeing, is very important for our tourism product. If it's not working for residents, it's not working for tourists, so government must ensure that it's working for residents to be able to offer it as a tourism product."
Retaining the Maltese character
One aspect of the chamber's tourism strategy is ensuring that "the beautiful things we have in Malta, e.g., culture, environment, landscapes, are kept alive."
"If they are kept alive and they're offering value, the tourism product can keep going," Arrigo commented, "If we remove that, then we're like any other place in the world."
He continued that "we can only better tourism if we personalise and use our distinctiveness to offer that better value, because no-one in the world is Maltese except Malta." Arrigo believes that through this approach, tourists will be "more prone to spend for that premium product."
Arrigo said that it is very difficult to tangibly gauge over-tourism, though negative perceptions towards tourism by locals - as notably seen in Barcelona, Spain in recent summers - can be limited by respecting what they are willing to change. He said that by utilising the concept of a limit of acceptable change, those in charge can see where residents are valuing the cost of tourism more than its benefits.
One of the main proposals within the Rediscover to Align document is to safeguard streetscapes and landscapes via a national aesthetic and landscape policy. The Malta Chamber wants to see this introduced alongside a renewed Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (SPED), which expired some years ago. The revised SPED should very clearly define what is commercial and what is residential, Arrigo added.
The chamber therefore believes that local councils must be part and parcel in all this. It believes that on behalf of residents, local councils should be responsible for the designing of their own squares, the colours and umbrellas used, as well as for their upkeep and maintenance.
One measure within the Rediscover to Align tourism strategy is to have a central entity set up to handle these matters alongside residents. On this, Arrigo said that "it's for the benefit of the residents" and so that "the tourism product increases." He added that tourism is "a massive value chain" and in a value chain, "you're only as good as your weakest link," which is why the lower end of things must be constantly improved.
The Local Council Government Division was one of the 32 stakeholders consulted in the making of the chamber's document. With so much consultation - including with police due to the importance of enforcement - this newsroom was told that the strategy is ready to be adopted immediately.
'We will have worse results, quality-wise, if government continues to see tourism in silos'
Alan Arrigo said that, in the chamber's view, the biggest threat to Malta's tourism product is if the government continues to look at tourism in silos. He said that if this persists, "we will have worse results, quality wise."
"If silos are working on their own, things will break. It will break the whole experience for the tourist and the resident," Arrigo said.
The Malta Chamber believes that in taking this step, the government must involve every ministry into this process. It hopes for this tourism strategy to be taken up holistically by government, since improving Malta as a tourist destination consists of touching up several areas that fall under different ministries.
"We cannot consider tourism as a silo. Planning, heritage, education, transport, the environment, cleanliness all have a big bearing on tourism, even though they aren't [under the Tourism Ministry's cap]. Unfortunately, in this country, we have a lot of silos from the private and public sector," Arrigo said.
In addition, he observed that tourism only truly relates to a country's branding, with the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) acting as the industry regulator and marketing organisation. Hence, since transport operations do not fall under its remit, it is essential to incorporate other Ministries into this strategy's implementation and execution.
The report proposes using data and smart systems to manage visitor flows and other environmental matters. For instance, it proposes that dynamic pricing is used when Valletta is full of people to drive people's behaviour in certain places and at certain times to manage crowd build-ups, i.e., make something popular more expensive and cheaper when it's empty. Another example would be implementing smart bins, where a weighing scale could prompt authorities that a bin is almost full and should be collected.
Ultimately, Arrigo stressed that Malta stands at a crossroads. Continuing to pursue tourism growth through sheer volume, he warned, risks eroding both residents' wellbeing and the country's long‑term appeal. By shifting the focus towards quality, coordination across government, and sustained investment in infrastructure and aesthetics, he said Malta can protect its distinct character while offering visitors a premium experience that benefits everyone. "If it works for residents, it will work for tourists," he concluded, adding that the Rediscover to Align strategy offers a ready‑made blueprint for doing tourism better, not just more.