Jerma closes due to tourism crisis - Sant

The Labour Party yesterday described the closure of the Jerma Palace Hotel as yet another sign of trouble for the tourism sector and particularly for Marsascala.

During a short press conference held outside the hotel, the party's leader Alfred Sant said the hotel would be converted into a series of luxury apartments.

Besides the loss of some 130 full time jobs, the closure of the hotel would affect a number of smaller enterprises in the area, he said, and deal a big blow to tourism in the area.

He added that the Malta Tourism Authority had already said it is downgrading Marsascala's tourist area status.

It has become standard practice for hotels to be turned into "luxury slums," he said, "...crammed development complexes aimed at making the most profit from a given stretch of land."

He continued to state that the country was facing the worst season in 10 years, in terms of tourist figures, when the authorities had set targets of a 50,000 rise in arrivals.

He said responsibility laid squarely on the shoulders of Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech and the Prime Minister, who some two years ago appointed an inter-ministerial committee which was meant to co-ordinate the efforts in the sector.

Two years on, he said, the committee had still not delivered. The country was still lacking a strategic plan and projects were either taking a long time to get off the ground or were being done in a shoddy manner.

He said that Labour aimed to develop tourist zones, including areas in the south, in collaboration with local councils, and with the private sector, while launching an intelligent marketing strategy aimed at niche targets.

Labour's tourism spokesman Evarist Bartolo said that the inter-ministerial committee, led by the Prime Minister, was supposed to come up with a co-ordination plan for all the ministries involved in the sector by March of last year. Yet to date nothing had happened.

Similarly, by the end of June last year, the committee was due to come up with a plan, aimed at managing the upkeep of the country, as well as a package of incentives for private public partnerships with investors from the sector. None of these has been implemented, Mr Bartolo pointed out.