Fingers crossed for better bookings

The Malta Tourism Authority's regional director for the UK and Scandinavia, John Montague, said the MTA was hopeful bookings would pick up once the current international situation has settled, given the increase in flight capacity and the combined efforts of Malta's tourism industry.

The MTA has just concluded a successful £500,000 TV advertising campaign on ITV in Manchester and London as well as on Channel 4 and Channel 5 nationwide, together with print media advertising and public relations campaigns.

"This winter we have achieved an outstanding 31 per cent increase in UK boardings from Manchester for the November-January period. UK forward bookings remain strong on Manchester and we fully expect this to continue into summer," said Air Malta's head of marketing and sales, Dale Keller.

"We remain optimistic about Malta's potential and have added summer 2003 capacity where we see a definite demand, while retaining a controlled total capacity increase, given that it will prove to be another challenging year for the airline yields," he said.

Air Malta will operate up to 51 flights a week from Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow in the summer 2003 schedule. Manchester has gained an additional flight, bringing the service up to 10 flights a week.

Malta's tourism ambassador in the UK, footballer Gary Neville, was the guest of honour at a recent event organised for travel agents in Manchester.

The event was organised by the MTA, Air Malta and the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, and included a presentation which focused on the main selling points of Malta as a destination.

The event in Manchester was followed up with the publication and distribution of a special Malta supplement aimed specifically at travel agents, which was distributed by Travel Weekly, the UK's leading travel trade newspaper.

The MTA's London office also recently published the first edition of its newsletter, which was distributed by the Association of British Travel Agents magazine. The newsletter is expected to be published on a quarterly basis and will also be distributed to travel agents in Ireland.