More about the playing field

Tourism is a tug-of-war within the sector or against single or multiple issue lobbies from without. Tourism encompasses all aspects of human activity and endeavour and therefore necessarily lends itself to subjective opinion about everything under the sun.

Paradoxically conflicting and competing teams often speak the same language. Competition and rivalry between destinations, tour operators, hoteliers, travel agents, you name it, anyone who services visitor demands, tries and, in most instances, succeeds, to please the crowds and delivers holidays as near as to the original brochure dream.

Before the birth of the Malta Tourism Authority, the Ministry of Tourism was monitor, regulator, enforcer, and policy maker. The minister was called upon to dispense with appeals and complaints, decide whether a hotel operator ran a house of ill-repute, or a hotel lacked sanitary and other regulation facilities, and whether guests' complaints were justified.

The MTA Act has since relieved ministers of these chores and the portfolio's mantle now covers personal and political accountability and policy direction.

A moratorium in hotel building is not new. Between 1992 and 1994 the ministry, that is, yours truly, enforced a selective moratorium that only allowed for the building of five-star properties and moderate extensions.

Before that moratorium came into effect, the Hotels and Catering Establishments Board, that prior to the 1987 election showered permits like confetti and therefore opened the flood gates to potentially thousands of new beds, undertook a weeding out process. Permits were not revoked but holders were given target dates to apply for PAPB permits and begin construction.

Many gave up or allowed permits to lapse. That selective moratorium delivered a brand new range of five-star properties, not least the Golden Mile. It gave Gozo a new image, caused a thorough recycling and upgrading of hotel plant, and provoked many a departure from the market.

This qualitative leap was achieved through a policy that Lino Spiteri, in his quiet but effective way, had qualified as dirigiste. I have never seen myself as a serial chopper off of heads and leave it to others to decide whether I am a latter-day son of the Revolution. I must, however, admit that, in hindsight, that policy was inflexibly dirigiste. And, if I may be as boldly immodest, it was also highly successful.

It also drew flack and predictions of doom and gloom from some of Mr Spiteri's colleagues, from well-meaning environmental lobbies, some of whose members risked life, limb and reputation to stop development, and not least drew exhortations and forecasts from occasional economists and push button experts that cavalierly and erroneously predicted eerie, empty rooms and investors, barricaded in solitary gilded halls, cowering from the wrath and ire of creditors.

The end result is that Malta, thanks to the foresight and entrepreneurship of Maltese, enriched her hotel inventory and attracted a substantial increase in business, conference and incentive traffic.

I believe that as the effects of EU membership become more tangibly felt, and the Third Package on aviation, a determining element when deciding on bed stock levels, that MHRA's brief completely disregards, makes Malta more accessible to traditional and new markets, this segment and visitor flow in general will grow even further.

The hotel sector has undergone a natural elimination process. Most "new" properties stand on the same or, possibly, a slightly larger footprint as their predecessors of the 1960s and 1970s, and, today, in the manner of the Arabian Nights, offer new beacons for old.

The Excelsior, The Verdala and the White Rocks Holiday Complex are names of the 1960s, as familiar as the Beatles. When they finally make it to market, like the Liverpool Five's recycled releases, yes, they will add to the bed count, to quality and diversity, but they will not have deflowered virgin territory.

Which is precisely what Din l-Art Helwa and the MHRA want, and, moreover, what the Ministry of Tourism (Carrying Capacity Assessment for Tourism - 2001 on Development Policies till 2010) and the government, that endorsed the recommendations, set new policy guidelines and, in April 2001, selected a preferred development scenario for the accommodation sector, have been saying all along. However, before the lions are unleashed into the arena to snap at the shadows of potential martyrs, can anyone please tell me what this tangle is all about?

Unless, I have already bored you to tears, watch out for episode four.

Tomorrow: Spectator players.