Straight from the heart

The recent promotion by the Malta Tourism Authority should, one hopes, deliver clear messages to the Maltese and Gozitans that it has to be our own responsibilities to deliver the proper image, service and hospitality one normally would expect.

Having carried out a continuous "crusade" to try and instill this sense of civic responsibility among all local residents for the past decade, I was appalled at the results of the vox pop undertaken by the Xarabank team for the programme about feasts.

If this is anything to go by when gauging the awareness of people about their own local culture and history, then I am afraid we are in need of a general course in national pride and patriotism.

We seem to know more about what goes on outside these shores (thanks to the recent developments in ICT and the media) than what lies just beyond our doorsteps!

Another issue is about the frontline people in the industry; these are people who should be delivering a memorable experience to our visitors through their animation and knowledge of the history, culture and characteristics of the Maltese; but it seems there is more emphasis on the selfish needs than on giving that service wholeheartedly.

I will give a few examples of some of my own experiences here:

I was recently in London and took a tour of the Globe Theatre apart from other sites in this metropolitan city.

It was an experience to listen to the manner in which our young guide brought the history of this theatre to life. I thought about this and the fact that we have tended to remain very conservative in the way we talk about our history and culture - it almost is as if we are actually ashamed of the long and chequered history of this small island state rather than proud of our achievements.

You look at the guides abroad and most of them (whether this is London, Paris, Estonia or Iceland) will be proud of their national achievements!

A small injection of this kind of attitude will certainly add flavour to the overall experience of the tourist! The service one gets today in restaurants, bars, shops and hotels has been the subject of countless letters in many of our newspapers but what have we done to improve this situation? Despite the efforts by the Institute for Tourism Studies and professional associations such as HCIMA and the Malta Cookery and Food Association, these are clouded over by the decisions taken by many entrepreneurs based on economic rather than social factors.

The latest example of this economic factor deals with the manner in which the service of tea is carried out in many of our establishments in Malta and Gozo, Instead of serving this beverage in a pot with milk and hot water, one is now presented with a cup of lukewarm water, a teabag and a sachet of sugar all for the same price that one would have paid for a tea served in the traditional way!

There is also an air of arrogance with service providers today. Without generalising, it is evident that many feel service is a servile or menial task and that the client is an intrusion into their administrative or extra-curricular work; these factors are certainly not dependant on government intervention but are the responsibility of us all to correct and improve.

We have paid more attention to the appearance of our environment than to the personal attitude of all of us, particularly those employed in the tourism industry directly. I am not saying that the environment is not an important aspect in our product and service development but what I am saying is that it cannot be improved without a parallel improvement in our human resources and our civic responsibilities.

We all need to ensure the Malta experience is memorable both in substance (history, culture and characteristic) and in essence (civic awareness and personal attitude). These are the very basic ingredients to achieve the warm welcome, coming straight from the heart, that is at the real core of any branding exercise; in one simple word it is ownership.

Mr Zarb is a tourism journalist and media presenter.