New look at areas designated as touristic

Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech told Parliament yesterday he had directed the Malta Tourism Authority to take a fresh look at the practice of designating whole towns and villages as tourist areas.

He was answering a parliamentary question by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo, who pointed out that certain businesses were being made to pay contributions to the MTA when they did not serve tourists.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that for the past 20 years the MTA and its forerunner NTOM designated whole towns and villages as being main tourist areas, secondary tourist areas and non-tourist areas, and set contributions accordingly. He did not feel this was right because some areas of such localities were not really frequented by tourists.

The MTA had now been directed to segment streets as tourist areas, rather than towns or villages. The exercise was underway and would be brought into effect on January 1 next year.