MHRA holds meetings with Ryanair

Council members of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association held meetings with top Ryanair executives and travelled to Slovenia to see what that country does to be part of the low-cost airline network, MHRA president Justin Zammit Tabona said.

Addressing the MHRA's annual general meeting on Monday, Mr Zammit Tabona said he appreciated the fact that the decision on bringing low-cost airlines to Malta was not an easy one "as the sustainability of strong air connections to and from Malta has to be safeguarded".

However, Malta's slow results in tourism "spur us to immediately ensure the advent of low-cost airlines as this appears to be the missing link in the jigsaw of success".

Mr Zammit Tabona said the MHRA will continue to contribute towards finding a way to bring low-cost airlines to Malta and at the same time safeguard the sustainability of strong and reliable air connections on which the Maltese tourism industry depends.

On the issue of lower VAT rates for restaurants, Mr Zammit Tabona said the MHRA had written to the Prime Minister to support the UK presidency's efforts to re-launch discussions in the European Council on the Commission 2003 proposal for extending a reduced VAT rate for restaurants to all member states.

Referring to the Malta Tourism Authority, he said that while Malta's competitors were making the best of their advertising and promotion, "we are still grappling with the restructuring of our promotion machine".

He added: "We urgently need to complete this exercise without further delay, as the markets will not wait for us to finalise our act. We must understand that in today's world it pays to move fast, and that bureaucracy jams the process of competing.

"With tourism contributing 25 per cent of our GDP, we as a nation cannot afford to let more time elapse on this very important matter."