Since I was appointed Labour Party spokesman for tourism some 20 months ago, I have been regularly pointing out that we do not have a national tourism strategic plan. All our competitors have their strategic plans.
More important than simply having them, they are mobilising their human and financial resources to implement their national strategic plans to have robust growth in tourism and they are succeeding while we are lagging behind.
On every occasion that I have referred to this lack of strategy, Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech has tried to brush off this criticism by pretending that Government already had such a plan and was already on the way to implementing it.
He kept talking about "our strategy" and "our plan". A few months ago I asked the minister point blank: "What document would you be able to give me if I ask you for a copy of your national tourism strategic plan?"
He was silent. Such a document did not exist then and still does not exist. Government does not have such a strategic plan of action to revive tourism. I cannot understand why government tries to deceive us by giving the impression that it has such a strategic plan.
This is another key area where the restructuring process of the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) has fallen dismally behind. According to the Implementation Report of February 8, 2005, between July 15 and November 30, 2005, the main targets for a three-year tourism plan were to be identified. Five months have passed since then and the national strategic tourism plan has still to be drawn up.
The MTA review drawn up by Deloitte rightly points out as Key Issue No. 1: "MTA has produced a number of Strategic Plans, which have delivered little focused action and poor results."
The proposed solution is "an integrated tourism planning approach with strong private sector input and a strategy that contains specific, measurable, attainable, realistic targets and action plans (supported by timeframes and budgets) which have designated ownership for each task".
Government is totally lacking in this integrated tourism planning approach. The extraordinary general meeting of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) held last Tuesday has come up with specific proposals on how to revive tourism.
Government must shake off its arrogance and complacency and take this opportunity to draw up and implement a strategic action plan with the strong private sector input provided by the MHRA and other key players in the industry.
Launching the Blueprint for New Tourism, more than two years ago, the president of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Jean-Claude Baumgarten, said: "There is now a new consciousness among governments that they cannot leave the growth of travel and tourism to chance.
"What is needed is a new vision and strategy involving a partnership between all stakeholders - public and private - to turn future challenges into opportunities."
Government must stop plodding along in tourism, coming out with so-called initiatives that give the impression of going everywhere and end up going nowhere. In November 2004 Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had already hailed his first budget for 2005 as a budget designed to give tourism a big boost and increase tourist arrivals by 50,000 every year.
In 2005 not only was this target missed, but also expenditure by tourists was Lm5 million down on the previous year. As Winston Zahra Jnr has pointed out, 50,000 tourists would have brought in Lm12 million in revenue, so in 2005 we actually lost Lm17 million in revenue from tourism.
The 2005 budget contained no sense of strategic direction for tourism and that is why it failed. The so-called initiatives by Government, announced with so much fanfare as some brilliant plan to save tourism, also lack a sense of direction and do not address the serious structural problems afflicting tourism.
A window of opportunity
Last January the Labour Party's general conference approved our proposals to rejuvenate tourism. We proposed the need to draw up and implement a strategic action plan together with the social partners and civil society. We want to set up a task force together with the private sector to review taxation on tourism that makes Maltese tourism the most taxed and least competitive in all of the European Union.
As partners with the private sector we want to launch new projects to improve the product and experience we offer our tourists. We stressed the need to make full use of the Internet in tourism and help local operators introduce online booking systems for their products and services. We proposed schemes to reward traditional and low-cost airlines and tour operators bringing tourists to Malta and Gozo.
We expressed the need to rethink Government's decision to close down overseas offices in some of our main markets and outsource our marketing to private companies that have higher incentives to sell other competing destinations. To help boost tourism in Gozo, we committed ourselves to subsidise the helicopter service.
There are many other proposals in our action plan to revive tourism in our islands. Government very arrogantly and shortsightedly, and imprisoned within its negative partisan mindset has dismissed all our proposals saying that they contain nothing new; that anyway most of them are already being implemented!
I hope that Government will listen to the MHRA set of proposals to set up a task force with the private sector and by the end of this month draw up an action plan to revive our tourism.
Government must then take a long-term approach and take the initiative to drive the wide and deep consultative process with all the stakeholders to formulate a strategic plan for tourism, which all the country will own. We can only succeed if we have a whole government and whole country approach, and a really national effort to make our tourism survive and thrive.
Government must not take the back seat and conveniently delegate its political responsibility to the MTA for such a strategic tourism action plan. The private sector has been investing quite a lot of money over the years to improve its product and service.
Government has fallen behind in this area and has allowed the country to become expensive, shabby and mediocre. As a result other countries are beating us in the fierce competition to attract tourists.
The Deloitte MTA Review report states: "The Product Improvement Action Plan would consider issues such as the shabbiness of Malta, heritage sites, beaches, local transportation and a host of other issues which affect tourism, but do not fall under the remit of MTA or the Ministry of Tourism and where Government is called upon by the private sector to adopt a more pro-active role. To succeed the Product Improvement Plan must be specific and must identify realistic target dates for the achievement of each objective and shall clearly delegate specific Ministerial responsibility for each phase of initiative."
Government is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of tourism. The Deloitte review stresses: "Notwithstanding the current financial limitations, Government must look at the implementation of a Product Improvement Action Plan as a national priority investment and should be prepared to make an immediate and significant 'catch-up' investment which will bring 'Product Malta' up to scratch.
"Government should consider ways of using additional revenue from tourism growth as a means of financing this initial investment and ongoing annual investment. If tourism does not achieve its growth potential then Malta will have a serious national economic problem."