Tackling the winter months

As promised, last Monday the Prime Minister announced various incentives that are meant to boost tourism, particularly in the winter months. It is a fact that while we have managed to attract more tourists over the past two years, figures for the winter months are causing problems in the tourism industry.

The three-star properties, especially in the north of the country, are the worst hit. As I have repeatedly pointed out, it is our responsibility to ensure that Malta does not become a seasonal destination, even if we shall always have more tourism in summer than in winter. In Malta we cannot follow the seasonal route for the simple reason that a quarter of our national economy as well as a third of employment depends on tourism.

It is Government's job to take decisions and factor in all the relevant considerations in the national interest. This is the more so when it comes to tourism where different stakeholders have different interests and perspectives. Hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators, national airlines, and low-cost airlines present - some more vociferously than others - different points of view, solutions, requests and remedies.

If this were a football match, I should consider myself lucky to have over 400,000 coaches shouting out different suggestions or outright instructions. I am limiting myself to my own compatriots since the number can increase exponentially if I also had to listen to the advice put in by people outside the country who in any case normally have their appointed or self-anointed spokesmen in Malta - so I do not need to add further to the number of available coaches! Be that as it may, it is Government's job to make decisions. Government forks out no less than Lm8 million a year towards the Malta Tourism Authority's budget and is set to increase that budget further to include branding as well as the impact of the new incentives announced last Monday. I cannot think of any shareholder who would make that kind of investment, let alone fork it out year after year, and then shirk responsibility by delegating decisions to some other body.

Equally it is our duty to communicate as effectively as possible our decisions. In this respect I shall deal in my own frank manner with a few of the questions that I have received over the past days.

Air Malta will be saving Lm 300,000 a year since it is being exempted from making its annual contribution to the Malta Tourism Authority. How will that help us receive more tourists?

Our national airline, through this measure, will be treated on the same level playing field as all other airlines. That is because the Tourism Authority never asked for or received any contribution from any other airline operating in Malta.

Still, the chairman of Air Malta has already declared that the money saved will be used to market Malta more aggressively for the winter months. That is an excellent example that should be taken up by other tourism stakeholders. Ideally all money saved through the incentives announced should be used to market Malta more effectively.

What about other airlines?

This is the whole point about the first incentive that has been announced. We would like to see all airlines engage in more effective marketing with regard to the winter months. I have in this sense informed airlines operating in Malta of Government's intentions, and I can state that the response has been positive and encouraging.

The second incentive that has been announced refers to setting up a Malta Tourism Authority portal for booking of flights, hotels and excursions? Won't this compete with what tour operators provide?

I have no difficulty about discussing the precise details of this portal with all stakeholders including FATTA, which represents travel agents and tour operators. That apart, I can categorically state that there is no intention to compete with other operators and there is no intention to package together the different components that have been mentioned. Nor is this incentive meant as some money-making machine.

Our intention is simply to provide our Tourism Authority with the same kind of amenity that many other national tourism organisations have already developed to assist rather than compete with the tourism industry.

The third incentive mentions providing marketing support for the winter months with regard to specifically designated routes? Why have those routes been chosen, as opposed to others?

The general principle that is applicable all across Europe about this kind of scheme is to make an offer with regard to routes that have not been operated so far. Routes that are already serviced have therefore been excluded.

The list of routes on offer is far more extensive than any other scheme that had been attempted before. The list covers Luton (UK), Basle (Switzerland), Girona (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal), Torino and Verona (Italy), Shannon or Cork (Ireland) and Warsaw (Poland).

Is the incentive applicable to all airlines?

Yes, including new players such as the large low-cost carriers.

But then marketing support is being limited to the winter months - from November to March. Does that mean that low-cost carriers cannot operate for the rest of the year?

All airlines, including low-cost carriers, are more than welcome to operate to and from Malta throughout the year. Still if we are to spend money on marketing support, it is only fair that we spend that money when we most need to boost tourism to our country. Any other approach would mean that we are simply making the case for some carriers, as opposed to making Malta's case. I pride myself on advocating only the national and no other cause.

We shall seek to be as generous as we can. If low-cost carriers would like to use the extra support given for the winter months towards their operating costs in summer, they can do that. Moreover, Government is not excluding our airport (MIA) as well as the private sector from making other schemes that dovetail with Government's own. Indeed that is the kind of dialogue for which I would be more than available - as ever round the clock: 24/7!

The sort of 'dialogue' for which I would be less prepared is with people who have not managed to notice that Government has at the very least made a substantial leap forward and simply want to tell us to fork out more millions every year as well as how to spend it!

You refer to the private sector coming up with its own schemes? How can this work?

Through the fourth incentive announced last Monday, Government, as of next year, will plough back half a million liri each year to the private sector by reducing by half all contributions to the Malta Tourism Authority. It is clearly stated that ideally the private sector would use that gain on new marketing initiatives.

Is that realistic?

Before the incentives were announced, Government was informed of one private sector initiative that should facilitate the entry into Malta of a major low-cost carrier.

The investment that has been 'promised' by the private sector, even before any Government incentive, is at a level similar to what the private sector will now save yearly through the fourth incentive. Government's incentive schemes were genuinely meant to make such initiatives even easier. Is it possible that the persons concerned have not noticed? Since I know that these persons are not lacking in intelligence and perseverance, I seriously doubt it.

As a result of the incentives, will any major low-cost carriers fly into Malta?

Assuming that the information referred to above was not a colossal exercise in bluffing by the persons concerned, Government's incentives should help secure the presence of at least one major carrier in Malta next year.

On our part, I do not gauge the effectiveness of the incentives that we have offered - costing us no less than Lm1.5 million a year - by whether or not they are taken up by any of the two major low-cost carriers. If I did that, I would only be holding myself and Government to ransom and that is certainly not my intention!

I gauge the effectiveness of the incentives on another factor: Which-ever entities take them up - traditional carriers included - will they lead to boosting tourism figures in the winter months? If they do, they would have well been worth our while.

I also gauge their effectiveness on whether they manage to promote the right mix of different sources of tourism to our country, in other words in providing for growth without driving out of the scene our own national airline, national carriers as well as tour operators which have helped us build our tourism industry over the past 40 years.

My duty is and remains to safeguard the entire picture, aware as I painfully am that there are colours in that picture that are louder than others!

On that note, a Happy Easter to all stakeholders. We can succeed best by genuinely working together.

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