Air terror plans foiled by British police

Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech and the Malta Tourism Authority's sales and marketing director, Jeffrey Cutajar, disagree on the impact the foiled terrorist attack on planes leaving the UK is likely to have on Maltese tourism.

"It is difficult for there to be diversion of tourism from long-haul flights to us, since they are two completely different niches," the minister said. "Events such as Thursday's are likely to have a negative effect on tourism generally."

Mr Cutajar was however of a different opinion: "We have already made contact with our team in London. We'll probably be launching a subtle advertising campaign in a week or so. I have already identified funds that can be switched for the campaign.

"I think we can tap into business coming from tourists who switch from long-haul destinations - our main competition since the advent of low-cost travel - to the Mediterranean region. We'll try to take advantage of this shift."

As news of the thwarted terrorist attempt emerged on Thursday morning, UK airports - Heathrow in particular - were choked by waiting passengers as the British authorities took measures to deal with the threat. No major financial shocks were reported even though European airlines saw their stocks go down.

Things started coming back to normal across Europe yesterday, even though the UK remained on "critical" alert. Disruptions for Malta-bound flights were minimal on Thursday, while yesterday everything ran largely according to schedule. With tourism down - by over 18,000 this year compared to the same period last year - any new niches that can be exploited would be welcomed by the industry.

Conflict and terrorism can disrupt global tourism but it can also create opportunities for "safe destinations". According to Mr Cutajar, Malta has not managed to exploit the massive loss of tourism in the Middle East, particularly in the conflict zone between Israel and Lebanon.

"We have a problem with air capacity. As we are doing in London now, we contacted tour operators in Germany and the UK to see if we could assist them with flows of tourists switching from the Middle East as a consequence of the conflict," he said.

As with the situation in London, when commenting on the opportunities for tourism emerging from the business diverted from the Middle East, the minister adopted a cautious approach. There might be some opportunities in the short term but overall, the conflict was generally bad news for tourism, he insisted. The problem, according to Mr Cutajar, is that there are too many tourists for Malta to handle.

"With regard to the business switching from the Middle East, we did not have the frequency of trips to Malta needed to sustain the sort of tourists flows which the operators wanted to switch," he said.

"Whereas a major operator may have a chartered flight a day to Cyprus there may be one a week to Malta. That's where the issue of economies of scale comes in."

Asked whether the MTA could subsidise chartered flights for such last-minute opportunities, Mr Cutajar did not exclude it but mentioned money as a constraint.

"A chartered plane once a week for six months costs something like €1.1 million. Say you subsidise €250,000 of that cost, the MTA does not have that kind of cash, especially at such short notice at this time of the year."