In today's globalised markets of goods and services, the name of the game is innovative thinking. As competition for business comes in all shapes, sizes and directions, near and far, success goes to those who dare not just to think but to think differently. Today's mantra is to think outside the box.

All of us at the Malta Tourism Authority have been thinking outside the box and inside it. Allow me to explain.

Traditionally, our advertising and marketing efforts have largely targeted European tourists. This continent shall obviously remain our bread and butter for the foreseeable future. And as more Europeans take to the air every year for business and pleasure, the onus is on us to get a piece of this action. At the same time, however, more people from countries neighbouring Europe are travelling to it. And we need to get a piece of this action as well.

How do we catch the eyes and ears of these potential tourists with a world to explore? How do we persuade them to come to a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean rather than London, a Greek island or a small Tuscan village? We simply have to think out of the box by thinking inside it. Inside a television box that is.

CNN is one of the biggest success stories in the global media. In Europe, Africa and the Middle East alone (the CNN network that Malta is advertising on) it is distributed to about 118 million households in 95 different countries. And, contrary to popular wisdom, 98 per cent of CNN viewers are sitting in their living rooms, not hotel rooms.

Who are these CNN viewers living in these 118 million households across Europe, Africa and the Middle East? They have an average income of Lm27,500 a year, more than half travel on business, one in five is an opinion leader and a third travel three times a year or more.

With such viewership, CNN is certainly a good and reliable vehicle to take us directly to the heart of our established as well as new tourism markets. And that is precisely the route we are taking.

At present and till the end of June we are airing a range of captivating and original 30-second adverts on CNN Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Built around the slogan I Am Malta, these CNN-produced slots embody the three values which underpin our newly-created Brand Malta: heritage, hospitality and diversity. The deal we struck with the CNN also includes a 10-second spot before and after their weather report, starting in September, and a presence on the weather page of www.cnn.com till January 2007.

Beaming Malta to 118 million households 30 times a week on CNN does not come cheap. It will cost a third of a million liri. These are the sort of calculated investment risks our tourism industry needs now and even more so in the future. That is why since 2004 we have increased the MTA's annual advertising budget by Lm1.7 million.

Hopefully, this thinking outside and inside the box will soon mean that for Maltese tourism CNN would also stand for Creating New Numbers.

Mr Lungaro-Mifsud is the executive chairman of the Malta Tourism Authority.

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