Three MTA boards to be removed

A bill for the restructuring of the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) will be presented to parliament for debate early next year, Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said yesterday.

He also announced that the authority's CEO, Leslie Vella was stepping down as part of the changes but would assume responsibility for the research division. A call for a new CEO, who would become managing director in the new structure, would be issued.

The chairman, Chris Grech, had agreed to stay on until the end of March.

Dr Zammit Dimech said during the budget debate on the Ministry of Tourism and Culture that the government was strongly committed to reforming the MTA starting with legal notices over the coming days.

He said the authority currently had 41 board members who sat on the main board and boards responsible for marketing, product planning, support services and human resources and enforcement.

The government's plan was to immediately issue a legal notice to eliminate the boards responsible for marketing, product planning and support services and then carry out more extensive changes through a new law early next year.

The minister said the inter-ministerial committee on tourism, which the opposition had referred to, was originally set up in 1999 and had proved useful. It was now being re-organised and would be chaired by the Prime Minister.

There was no contradiction in that the MTA would be given additional funds if it achieved its targets. This reflected ongoing performance appraisal and underscored the correlation between funds spent and returns. Ideally this concept should be developed further with precise benchmarks.

Dr Zammit Dimech said the development of the cruise liner terminal was ahead of schedule and progress was evident.

Analysing tourism performance, Dr Zammit Dimech said tourist arrivals in October grew 16.7 per cent, which was significant since October was not a peak month. Arrivals since January had grown by 3.7 per cent and tourist spending was up Lm2.2 million in the first 10 months.

The number of full-time employees in hotels had risen marginally while the number of part-timers had gone up considerably since 1998. While 24 hotels had closed over the past few years, 12 new ones had opened with more or less the same number of beds.

Dr Zammit Dimech said tourism had been in decline for the past three years. Arrivals dropped by 2.9 per cent in 2001, 3.9 per cent in 2002 and 0.6 per cent last year. Even if arrivals in the last two months of this year stayed unchanged from last year, Malta would still have performed better than the past two years.

For November, Malta International Airport had recorded an increase in passenger movements of 2.9 per cent.

Between January and September 2004 there had also been increases in earnings per bednight and per capita spend.

The bedstock situation was itself encouraging. Planning capacity assessment for 2001 to 2010 said it should stay at 150,125; it currently stood at 150,170.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that in 2002 the bedstock in five-star accommodation had been 9.3 per cent of all licensed bedstock; in 2004 it was 12.7 per cent.

The opposition had spoken about declining investor confidence in tourism. But then, how would they explain how over the past few years, the MTA had approved extensions to the San Lawrenz, Westin, Selmun, Grand, Vivaldi, Dolmen, Riviera and Fortina hotels and the Mellieha Holiday Centre as well as the opening of new establishments such as the InterContinental? Also expected to open next year were the Cavalieri, the Golden Sands and the Meridien St Julian's.

Nowhere did Deloitte in its report on the MTA say the MTA's offices overseas should be closed down. Some offices in the main core markets could be kept going with some restructuring, although this would not mean the offices would be doing the MTA's job in Malta.

Reacting to other comments, the minister said the sale of Air Malta's hotels would be done by tender for the best possible conditions.

The Malta-Gozo airlink was being pursued and progress was being registered in talks with Spanish and Italian companies.

Earlier in his speech Dr Zammit Dimech spoke on culture, saying that the government was allocating Lm400,000 more than last year for Heritage Malta.

Over the past year the company had set up a management team, organised 45 exhibitions, 67 lectures and published a number of books.

Many more initiatives were planned for next year including the inauguration of the Roman Domus in Rabat and better accessibility programmes at the Verdala and San Anton palaces.

A draft project description of the Hagar Qim/Mnajdra project was being presented to his ministry today and this would then be submitted to Mepa. The project involved the use of €3.5 million from EU structural funds aimed at giving more importance to cultural identity.

On the resignation of the chairman of the national orchestra, Dr Zammit Dimech said that in his resignation letter, the chairman had not indicated any kind of pressure.

Turning to the Malta Restoration Centre, Dr Zammit Dimech said the centre had been awarded the contract and had started working on the restoration of paintings by Giuseppe Calì.

The centre had had successes in the academic sector with students graduating in the conservation sector.

The Manoel Theatre's programme, the minister said, reflected a total commitment to the highest possible quality. The opera festival was being held again next year. There were activities which would focus on Shakespeare and also Maltese theatrical works.

The minister said that regular meetings were being held with Public Broadcasting Services to see how the Lm500,000 allocation could be used for the production of the best possible cultural programmes.

The cultural programme Meander was of a very good standard and had been held for several years but other programmes had to be broadcast. There should also be a cultural spot during the news bulletin. There had been an editorial board directive to give more importance to cultural events.

Following the closure of Radju Bronja, Campus FM started broadcasting classical music from Classical FM. Radio Malta was also broadcasting programmes which used to be broadcast on Radju Bronja.

Turning to carnival, the minister said that there were new facilities at St Elmo but one hoped there would be the necessary funds for the setting up of a carnival village.

He appealed for a commitment to culture, since this could be the biggest tourist attraction. Many countries had sun, sea and sand, but none had Malta's unique history and cultural attractions, Dr Zammit Dimech said.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando (PN) said the projected improvements from which tourism would benefit over the next few years should amount to Lm95 million.

The government, thanks also to EU funds, would be making substantial investments to improve the environment. That included the sewage treatment plants and a new engineered landfill.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said he agreed with the opposition that fish farms should be removed from the proximity of important dive-sites. Indeed, the government had asked Mepa to identify alternative sites which were further out to sea than the present ones. The government had also asked Mepa to identify sites for golf courses.

The Nationalist MP said the private sector should be more heavily involved in the MTA's workings. The transport system, too, called out for several improvements because parts of it gave visitors bad impressions.

Dr Pullicino Orlando welcomed the fact that debate had started once more on City Gate. This was an eyesore which Malta could not afford.

Concluding, he said the government's setting up of an inter-ministerial working group under the chairmanship of the prime minister himself proved that the government was intent on taking tourism seriously.

Robert Arrigo (PN) said initial figures on November performance showed slight increases in tourist arrivals, making for a slight overall increase for 2004. It was, however, imperative that Malta updated its tourism strategies as soon as possible. And Malta needed more efficient customer service and service with a smile.

There was also need for stricter law enforcement and customer training for bus drivers.

He said that large operators and low-cost airlines were being sidelined in favour of niche markets, but the former now had their own aircraft fleets and could control the markets.

Mr Arrigo said that the fact that 134,000 tourists had come from "unidentified markets" did not say much for the MTA. Efforts should be made to identify these markets and study how they could be better exploited.

He said the visitmalta bus service had not been well received and left much to be desired. This service should become self-supporting.

It was estimated that the Malta Fireworks Festival had brought only 200 visitors to Malta. For the funds that had been expended could have gone much further with foreign operators.

Franco Galea (PN) said everything must be done to ensure that all funds expended on tourism by the MTA were accounted for.

The outcome of the current MTA restructuring plan should ensure the survival the most adept at their jobs. For example, product planning should be done more sensibly and without conflicts of interest to cater for the needs of the most diverse categories of tourist as possible.

The real reasons why certain hotels were closing down should be well studied. Why were inspections carried out only on smaller hotels, sometimes with blackmail being resorted to? It was also well known that certain MTA personnel were on the payroll of other companies in the sector.

This sort of situation was just not on, said Mr Galea.

Concluding, he said a high-ranking official of the MTA had told a hotelier that he was sorry he was being so hard on him, but he was being made to act that way.