Tourism in Malta and Gozo is still sluggish. Some five-star hotels are doing well. Many four- and three-star hotels are not. Even if they are filling their beds, their rates are down, even at Lm5.50 per person on half board in June!

Some four-star hotels, desperate to increase their revenue, are taking in students who come to Malta to learn English. Tourists have complained to me that these students are being treated better than them.

Many of our restaurants are being squeezed by higher costs and much lower income. Other tourism operators in the transport, entertainment and retail sector are also complaining of poor business.

In May we had over 6,500 Germans who wanted to come to Malta but gave up, as there were no planes to bring them over. The same is going to happen to other thousands of tourists in the coming weeks who are willing to come here, but can find no flights. We are spending millions of liri advertising our islands, we create the demand for thousands to visit us, but then we lack the necessary air links to bring them over.

Improving air links to Malta should be one of our top priorities to revive our tourism industry. As small islands we need our own viable national airline. So the necessary steps need to be taken to help Air Malta survive in the new reality shaped by a liberalised aviation industry including low-cost carriers. If we continue to decline as a tourist destination even Air Malta would lose out.

The Labour Party is in favour of putting Air Malta under the responsibility of the Tourism Ministry to co-ordinate its operations much more in synergy with the need of the tourism industry. We need to attract more traditional and low- cost airlines to Malta from different destinations.

There are over 60 low-cost airlines in Europe ...it makes sense for us to attract a number of them as we cannot remain out of the low-cost airline loop - they are increasingly taking over from traditional carriers and tour operators. They are not only flying machines that are capturing more of the short- and medium-haul travel market; they are very efficient marketing networks that are driving tourism growth to many destinations all over the world.

It is true that Government cannot be accused of actively preventing them from operating to Malta. Under the open skies policy we cannot keep any European airline from operating to Malta. What the government can be accused of, rightly, is that it is taking far too long and moving too slowly to come up with a market support scheme to make their operation to Malta viable. Government has come up with a scheme for winter but it is still waiting for the European Commission to give its go ahead that such a scheme is acceptable under EU regulations.

Malta International Airport has also offered a support scheme and even the private sector is creating another scheme. None of these three schemes will work on their own, but they might if they are co-ordinated. In the meantime, as Government is taking too long to get the country's act together there is a big risk that airlines will have already committed their aircraft to other destinations for the coming months and we will lose another year talking and talking and losing more and more tourists.

The Labour Party agrees with giving affordable subsidies to low-cost airlines in the same way that Government is already subsidising tour operators (to the tune of nearly Lm2 million a year) to bring tourists to Malta. That kind of subsidy is called 'market support'. What's in a name? So, like our competitors, we should agree to give market support to low-cost and other traditional airlines provided they bind themselves to bring the number of tourists we want them to bring.

Improving air links to Malta is crucial, but not enough. Labour's strategic action plan for tourism states that Malta has entered the stage of maturity and decline as a destination and we need a tourism strategic plan drawn up jointly between Government and the stakeholders to rejuvenate and reinvent ourselves as a tourism destination. There is no one miraculous solution to bring about a recovery in our major economic activity.

There are a lot of decisions that we need to take:

¤ We need a national tourism plan as we cannot continue without a sense of direction like now; we need to work together much better and co-ordinate our efforts as a nation to improve our standards in tourism;

¤ We need to diversify our product by enhancing different tourism localities all over Malta and Gozo, and while continuing to take care of our core tourism zone in Sliema and St Julian's we must start taking proper care of Marsascala, Marsaxlokk and Birzebbuga, Cottonera, Valletta, Bugibba, St Paul's Bay and Mellieha, and Gozo and Comino;

¤ We need to clean up our country and keep it much cleaner than we are doing at present and we must stop destroying our rural and urban environment;

¤ We need to make our product more authentic, more Maltese, as most of our product is still dominated by the homogenised mass tourism model that is dying. More people are travelling to places and expecting them to be different and unique so we must increase the local content in terms of food, culture, customs, and music in our product. There are thousands of destinations but only one Malta, one Gozo and one Comino. Let us identify what makes us unique and articulate it ...

¤ We need to review the tax structure that has made us the most taxed tourist industry in the EU and liberate our industry from this burden that is undermining its viability;

¤ We need to have a leaner regulatory regime that is more relevant to our reality instead of the cumbersome and expensive regulations introduced by Government without an impact assessment on the industry;

¤ We need to help entrepreneurs improve the quality of the service and product offered by three- and four-star hotels, we need a better trained workforce at all levels in tourism;

¤ We need to market ourselves much better than we are doing and increase our visibility and accessibility through a much more effective use of the Internet as a marketing and sales tool.

We can revive tourism. But its revival cannot happen on its own. We need a new dynamic government that has the ideas, energy and dedication to give a new beginning to our tourism industry. Even its harshest critics are ready to acknowledge that the Labour Party has shown a strong commitment to tourism over the years and an ability to deliver results. We can do so again.

evaristbartolo@hotmail.com