Call for more funds to promote Malta

Malta is being "vastly undersold", according to one of the world's most prominent hoteliers, who believes it is one of the main reasons behind the island's relatively low hotel tariffs.

In an interview with The Times, Kurt Ritter, president and chief executive of the Rezidor SAS Hospitality, and recent winner of the coveted Hotelier of the World award, said it was also time for Malta to put a cap on more hotel bedstock.

Mr Ritter was in Malta to sign the contract for the Golden Sands Hotel at Ghajn Tuffieha, which is to be demolished to make way for the five-star Radisson SAS Golden Sands Resort & Spa, to form part of Rezidor.

Nearly Lm2 million of the Malta Tourism Authority's budget is channelled towards pure advertising, which works out at less than one per cent of the revenue generated by tourism.

This was a far cry from the four to five per cent of tourism revenue which Mr Ritter believes should be spent on advertising alone.

"I don't think people are disappointed when they visit Malta. It's beautiful, it's safe, it's easily accessible from mainland Europe. You have a good airport, you have narrow charming roads, although they can be serviced better, and there is a lot of heritage other countries would kill for."

The overbuilding and the general upkeep of the island are problems that need to be addressed urgently so as to portray a better quality image.

Mr Ritter said the country's tourism authorities should rethink their strategy and reposition this most important sector from one that catered for the masses to one more oriented towards quality.

Malta needs aggressively to promote a sun-plus product, the plus being everything from heritage to golfing, which also needs to be developed to attract the higher end visitor.

Still, he stressed, it was important to increase occupancy figures, as it was only in this way that they could run at a healthy profit and maintain their high staffing levels.

Mr Ritter echoed a call made by the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association on the need to curtail bedstock. Malta had enough hotels and it was time for those people who invested in such properties to get their money back, he said.

Capping was a policy adopted by Singapore in the mid-1980s when they had the same over-supply problem and the strategy worked both for the hotels and for the environment of the area, he said.

There was no reason why the average hotel rate in Malta should be so low. Tourists, he said, were paying nothing for five-star service in Malta.

On the chain's investment in Malta, Mr Ritter said that Rezidor SAS did not rule out making a small contribution in the coming years to Malta's heritage sites.

Hopefully, he said, the group could do something on the island to mark the opening here of the second Radisson SAS branded property, after the Radisson Bay Point.

The Radisson SAS brand is the fastest growing international hotel brand in Europe and now has more than 200 hotels in 40 countries.

Within the next 10 years, Mr Ritter plans to develop the existing Rezidor SAS portfolio of brands to 700 hotels, while at the same time launching new brands.

Mr Ritter was named Hotelier of the World by Hotels Magazine after 60,000 readers were invited to vote from a proposed group of prominent industry figures. Judging was based on the individual's achievements, performance and vision, not only for the company in which they serve, but also for the industry as a whole.

He first came to world prominence with the SAS International Hotels brand by increasing the portfolio from 29 hotels to 159 signed agreements in eight years.

Three years ago, he took SIH through a rebranding process as part of a future multi-brand strategy, forming Rezidor SAS.