Do you care?

Last Thursday, I had occasion to attend a dinner hosted by Oliver Hick, general manager of Accor Hotels in Malta and currently running the Grand Hotel Mercure Selmun Palace. The dinner was held on the occasion of a visit to Malta by Ferhan Gorgun, Accor Hotels and Leisure director of Operations and Tour Operations, and Patrick Fournier, regional general manager for the Mediterranean within the same chain.

Accor has a presence in 90 countries. In Malta, apart from managing Selmun, they also manage the Dragonara Casino as well as Grand Hotel Mercure San Antonio in St Paul's Bay.

They believe in our country and they have every intention to consolidate and enhance that presence further. Mr Hick has recently gone on record to state that Malta is a great country in terms of tourism and has great potential in the years ahead.

He added: "One of Malta's main strengths nowadays, besides culture, is security as tourists are looking for very safe destinations, and Malta is definitely one of them. Malta is very accessible from all large European cities and, being part of the EU, should help develop and increase awareness of the destination.

"The Malta Tourism Authority has done a great job in upgrading standards and this needs to continue if we are to remain competitive."

Endorsement in favour of present policies from Accor is good news for Malta. The chain manages two hotels that represent 450 rooms or more than 160,000 room nights. I am confident that this chain will be doing its proactive part to enforce awareness of the Malta destination through its own network of offices.

When our Prime Minister, Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, was inaugurating Accor's second hotel in Malta, the Grand Hotel Mercure Coralia San Antonio on February 15, 2002, he said: "I see Accor's commitment to Malta, as that of other leading European and US brands, which currently manage or own Maltese hotel properties, as a clear signal that the international leisure community sees bright prospects for the future of our tourism industry."

Last month I had a meeting with Ronny de Clercq and Dave Green from Thomas Cook. That meeting was later followed this month by the launch in Malta of next winter's and next summer's catalogues, featuring Malta, by Thomas Cook Reisen. Many representatives of leading German papers and media were present for the launch.

When I had the privilege the other weekend to launch the Cottonera marina I referred to the growing importance of new niches in tourism that could attract to our country higher yield visitors. Yachting is one of those niches as is the case with conference and incentive travel, diving, health and spa facilities, and business travel.

We are sparing no effort to enhance our country's image, further bringing to light our culture, history and artistic wealth, all contributing to regarding Malta as a holistic experience, rather than merely as one more sun, sand and sea destination. We are also using new marketing tools to ensure that our message is communicated to the audience that matters.

Be it a prize-giving ceremony for the Bailiff of Suffren, which was the culmination of a yachting event bringing in yachts from St Tropez in France, another event for the Bordée Maltaise that brought in yachtsmen and their families from the tourist town of Lavandou in France, participating in EU Leonardo projects to improve the skills of different workers in the food and beverage or hospitality industry, awarding hotels that provide that higher environmental standard and care which is encouraged, organising a photographic competition to bring out our country's unique heritage, or even seriously exploring the possibility of placing Malta on the map of Italian Religious Tour Operators who were in our country recently and confirmed our potential as an excellent pilgrimage destination, there is from our side always one purpose: that of doing our utmost to bring in the largest possible number of tourists and to ensure the best possible yields for our economy.

Malta deserves no less. Tourism accounts for a quarter of the national economy and a third of all employment. My commitment to meet all stakeholders, who have ideas to discuss or require any form of support, has meant meeting people from countless different sectors and from all walks of life but who are all involved.

The struggle to achieve all this remains an uphill one. Only last week I was examining figures issued by Malta International Airport on passenger movements in July. It is the first indication we could have of tourist traffic, since the airline figures follow later and the official statistics take even longer to emerge.

MIA's figures indicate, although only provisionally, that we are managing to maintain the numbers that we had last year. But that on its own is not good enough. There is still scope to increase numbers, especially from certain markets, and in any case we need to ensure that Malta is not at the receiving end of endless tactics to bring down our hotel rates, threatening the very feasibility of the industry.

September 11, 2001, is not an over-used cliché. I was examining the report on Progress and Priorities for 2003/04 issued by the World Travel and Tourism Council that brings together the global business leaders in this sector. References to the September 11, 2001, negative turning point abound all throughout.

It was not simply a one-off episode. It led to the war in Afghanistan meant to root out terrorism but that challenge is hardly over. Consider Djerba, Bali, Mombassa, Morocco, Spain, Moscow or for that matter this week's news - British Airways pulling out from Saudi because of what they consider as a high risk threat on their interests.

Moreover the war on Iraq is having its consequences and the economic situation in many of the countries on which we depend for our tourists has not yet recovered from the post September 11 trauma.

Although the battle remains uphill, this could also be the time when tourism could bottom up unless the world is struck by some major calamity.

That brings me to the bottom line for our own country. There are factors that do not depend on us, but others do.

¤ Do you care about those that do?

I think I have a right to ask that question to that taxi driver who persists to overcharge, or to be insolent, or who thinks that the heat justifies any form of attire.

That question must also be put to those who rightly enjoy barbecue nights on our beaches but then do not bother to clean up afterwards; who throw burning charcoal in litter bins; and who leave behind all sorts of memorabilia.

¤ Do you care for Malta's most important economic pillar? I address the question to those bus drivers who try to cheat tourists of the right change or who swear at them while asking them to move back.

¤ Do you care? When you are at home and have some litter to dispose of, I suppose you use a waste paper basket. When you throw about litter in the street, just because you are outside your own home, is it because you consider the rest of the country as one whole waste paper basket?

¤ Do you care? When you indulge in eating chewing gum (one habit I can't particularly fathom) does the gum have to end up on our pavements, no matter how well they have been done up?

¤ Do you care? You love your pet and rightly so. Could you not love to the same extent our pavements, streets, promenades and rocky beaches as you walk your pet?

¤ Do you care? You are privileged enough to own a sizable yacht. Do you have to flush it at the Blue Lagoon? What about the sceptic tanks that are supposed to be part of your equipment?

It is high time that as the majority responds by stating, "Yes I care. I am doing something about. I shall do more about it." The minority will then come to its senses and realise that we cannot afford to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. That is what tourism is all about. We all depend on it and we all need to care.

Clean-up jobs, rehabilitation and restoration, maintenance of public areas, making the country greener, cleaning beaches - there will always be scope to do much more of all that, provided that these initiatives are backed up by the strongest possible enforcement measures and, even more importantly, by a civic consciousness and pride that must pertain to each and every one of us.

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