Advertising does help to create demand for more tourists but up to half of the most effective advertising is estimated to be wasted. If the destination does not live up to the promise communicated in the brand and advertising, people feel cheated and let down and will not come back and will tell others to stay away.
Low-cost airlines will make flying to Malta and back more affordable. Their marketing set-up will help make Malta better known among more millions of people. But again, if once they fly into Malta, travellers find shabbiness, poor and expensive services and mediocre experiences, they will be disappointed and will not encourage others to visit us.
Tourism around the world is growing at 4.5 per cent a year. In Southern Europe and the Mediterranean it is growing by five per cent. In Malta not only are we not growing at all, but fewer tourists are coming. Our competitors are beating us on quality or price or both.
A survey carried out by AC Nielsen shows that a week's holiday in Malta in June 2007 bought in the UK costs £523 while a week in Greece costs £492, in Portugal £483 and in Spain £481. One of the reasons we are more expensive is the higher cost of travelling to Malta. Many local hotel rates have not changed in the last five years, although their operating costs have increased a lot.
The Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) must be run better, making use of its good professional people, building better and more effective local and overseas links with the industry. The industry has changed and is still changing. Tourists have changed and we have not changed with them. They go to those destinations that have changed and adapted themselves to what tourists want in the first decade of the 21st century. The tourist market is in a rapid and deep transition from mass tourism to a new age that calls for a tailor-made approach to the specific attitudes and needs of tourists.
We need to rejuvenate tourism by being in touch with what travellers and tourists desire today and how and when they travel. We must draw up a national strategic plan in tourism for Malta, made up of strategic action plans for the different types of those we want to attract: English learning, divers, sea and leisure, heritage, conference and incentives... we must understand the tastes of tourists of different ages, genders, nationalities, socio-economic profile and cater for them throughout the whole chain of the industry.
The old and the new
We need integrated and co-ordinated planning. One of the few advantages of being small is that it should be easier for us to mobilise the whole country to have a wholehearted commitment to have a thriving tourism industry. But the country is lacking the necessary political will and energetic leadership to make this happen.
Most of us are still not aware that the "golden age" of mass tourism - of unlimited growth and disregard for the environment, of standardised, rigidly packaged products and services - is over. There is a paradigm shift occurring in the tourism industry the world over.
A new tourism is emerging - sustainable, environmentally and socially responsible, and characterised by flexibility and choice. A new type of tourist is driving it: more educated, experienced, independent, conservation-minded, respectful of cultures and insistent on value for money.
Information technology and low-cost carriers are opening up an astonishing range of travel and holiday options for this new tourist. To remain competitive, tourism destinations and industry players alike must adapt. For many, the challenge is to "reinvent" tourism. Market intelligence, innovation, and closeness to customers have become the new imperatives.
Our tourism industry is in a painful phase of transition. The old has not died and the new is struggling to be born. One area where this is obvious is our dependence on tour operators. Some major ones have moved out or have reduced their commitment to us as a destination and are sending us fewer tourists.
This is hitting badly our three- and four-star hotels which depend mainly on tour operators. There is no quick fix to lowering this dependence. Other competing destinations have been buying tourists by giving these tour operator market support. More tourists are bypassing tour operators by booking their holidays directly. We must help our industry use the Internet more effectively for sales and marketing. As more and more people in our core markets book their holidays online, we must make much better use of search engine marketing for the islands and for our individual operators.
Resurrecting a dying destination
Chris Woodbridge-Cox, UK managing director of Club Med, wrote in his regular column for Travel Weekly (April 7): "The number of tour operators featuring Malta is falling because it is a dying market. In the past 40 years a major segment of those travelling to Malta have been ex-servicemen who were stationed there during World War II. The passing of that generation unfortunately coincides with tour operators moving from a volume strategy to value. Gone are the days when each operator chased every last booking. And while there is demand for low-cost holidays, the product and prices on offer are much better elsewhere.
"The lack of quality mid-market hotels, and I'm sorry to say, decent beaches leaves Malta between a rock and a hard place. So what of the future?
"Well, Malta has enough plus points to keep people coming; it's a great cruise stop-off, and makes a wonderful city-break destination. But after many years of product neglect, it will be interesting to see if the tourist authority can subsidise the hotel rates to keep First Choice and the other major operators interested."
What is the government's and MTA's policy towards tour operators? Will they try to hold them here or lure them back through "market support"? Earlier this year both Cyprus and Morocco reached deals with major operators and these will be sending many tourists to these two destinations in exchange for financial support. Cyprus is in the European Union, like us, and has found ways to keep tour operators flying in tourists. Major low-cost carriers do not fly to Cyprus and has decided to subsidise tour operators the same way we are subsidising low-cost carriers.
Spending smartly
We are going to find it impossible to stay within the present budget for tourism if we want to keep spending on advertising, marketing and branding and at the same time offer financial support to all tour operators, traditional and low-cost airlines that reach targeted agreements with us to bring tourists to our islands. Can we afford to increase public expenditure on tourism? Can we afford not to?
We cannot magic away our budgetary constraints but we can spend our budget in a smarter way. We should be spending less on generic advertising and more on direct market support and product improvement. Market support initiatives are essential to stimulate the demand for our islands and help give birth to a new tourism industry, but only as long as they form an integral part of a serious strategic plan to renew our tourism and improve the product and services which we give to the people who visit our country by offering them a rich and satisfying experience with the price and quality they want and expect.
Are the Maltese Islands geared to attract and satisfy the new tourists? Undoubtedly, some of our industry players are aware of the radical changes that are taking place in the travelling habits of today's tourists. These industry players are taking the necessary steps to innovate their products and services. But as a destination we still have extensive parts of our industry and tourist public structures submerged in the past.
We need a serious strategic plan to reinvent ourselves as a destination and give our tourism a new lease of life by becoming competitive again through the price and quality of the experiences we offer. We are at a very critical stage. As a tourist destination we have entered the phase of decline. We have to work hard to rejuvenate and reinvent ourselves to give our tourism industry a future.
At the moment the signs of decline are stronger than the signs of rejuvenation. It is not going to be easy as there are deep-rooted structures, mindsets and habits to change, but we either change them or die as a 21st century tourism destination.
evaristbartolo@hotmail.com