Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech yesterday welcomed Ryanair's decision to operate a service linking Malta and Girona in Barcelona, the fifth route to be operated by the airline, and said he looked forward to agreement being reached for new services from Scandinavia and from Bari, Italy.

Speaking in Parliament during a debate on the financial estimates of the Malta Tourism Authority, the minister insisted however that the government did not want Malta to be over-dependent on any one airline for growth in tourism arrivals. It was for that reason that talks with other low-cost and legacy airlines had been held or were being held on new routes, these airlines including Meridiana, German Wings, Clickair, Central Wings, Air Malta and British Airways. The UK airline had recently introduced a new service from Manchester. Indeed, it was important that Malta continued to have a proper mix of low-cost and legacy airlines.

Dr Zammit Dimech said efforts to improve access to Malta were being complemented by increased overseas publicity.

In January the MTA had launched visitmalta.com, with initial initiatives that were destined to grow with time. Discussions had been held with sectors which were already working in this sector and had initially maintained that the MTA's efforts were in direct contrast with its regulatory duties. These discussions had led to an agreement which was due to be signed soon.

Furthermore, the international marketing firm Media Consult had been selected for this role, although this decision was still subject to appeal. A total of €21 million would be spent on marketing over the next three years.

The MTA's overseas representation was now a mix of own offices in the major source markets such as the UK and Germany, the use of facilities in Maltese embassies and Air Malta offices and representative offices in a range of other countries. More importantly, however, the output from these offices was now better coordinated.

Malta was also improving the process for the issuing of visas, such as in Moscow, and consular offices were being opened in several countries by the Foreign Ministry.

Efforts were also continuing to improve the product. There was a stronger accent on event orientation, with several new, and highly popular, events having been introduced in the past few years. The summer festival, introduced last year, would be bigger and better this year.

St George's Bay would be announced in the coming days as a blue-flag beach, a process which would be followed in other beaches.

Areas such as Bugibba and Qawra had been spruced up over the past few weeks, but plans had been laid down for more thorough upgrading and embellishment of the area from Qawra to St Paul's Bay, including another sandy beach at St Paul's Bay and a large aquarium at Qawra. Special activities had been held in the area for Carnival and Easter Monday but a much bigger event, Festa Muzika, will be held on June 21 with performances on four stages from St Paul's Bay to the Fra Ben area.

Dr Zammit Dimech said the MTA was continuing to give importance to Gozo as a destination with its own identity. The authority had given its input on product improvements in Mgarr, Qbajjar, Marsalforn and Victoria and was participating in special events such as the events at Victoria over this weekend.

Air Malta was presenting five-minute publicity spots on Gozo on all its flights and had also commissioned two campaigns on the print media. Concluding, Dr Zammit Dimech said that while much remained to be done for further growth of the industry, it was heartening to report that arrivals between November 2006 and March this year totalled 291,582, an increase of 7.1 per cent over the same period in the previous year and five per cent on the year before.

Even more significantly, earnings from tourism between January and March had increased by 10 per cent over last year and employment in the sector in November 2006, according to the latest figures, was up 1.3 per cent over November 2005, including both full-time workers and part-timers.

Opposition tourism spokesman Evarist Bartolo said the tourism sector may have started to recover at last, and he hoped the MTA would now pass from crisis management to strategic planning for sustained long-term growth.

Clearly much remained to be done. The government spoke on not wanting over-dependence on any single low-cost airline, but it appeared to have acted in a panic in the way it allocated the new routes to Ryanair without having succeeded in also taking EasyJet on board. Perhaps it would have been better had the Luton route been given to EastJet, but the government clearly wanted quick results.

Mr Bartolo insisted that the MTA needed to be more adequately resourced. Was it true that it was already facing financial problems this year? The authority needed to better account for its spending and there needed to be closer correlation between subsidies to tour operators and the number of tourists they brought to Malta. Was it true that one particular operator had been given Lm200,000 to bring in 20,000 tourists?

Furthermore, could anyone explain why the contribution of Malta International Airport to the MTA had been halved to Lm100,000? Why was there no contribution from the Cottonera consortium? Could anyone explain how revenue from licences was projected to increase by 71 per cent? Why had the fees for Mellieha beach concessions been practically quadrupled overnight?

Who would subsidise the low-cost airlines, the MTA alone? Would the MIA contribute?

What had been the cost of closing the MTA offices abroad and, now, the reopening of some of them? Why was there no funding allocation for branding? Had this exercise ended? What would become of the funds the MTA had spent when Xaghra l-Hamra was designated for a golf course? Why did the MTA need to subsidise the powerboat race?

It was also important that all the country benefited from tourism. It appeared that efforts were being concentrated on a core area, with withdrawal from peripheral areas such as Gozo, Bugibba and Marsascala.

Mr Bartolo insisted that Malta needed to broaden its marketing net. It needed to expand into new markets, including the US, Japan, China and the Gulf, and not simply continue milking the old cows.

Unfortunately the MTA was spending much of its energies on reversing mistaken decisions taken in the past, such as in the case of advertising on CNN and on language tourism. Malta had lost some 400 host families and they now needed to be convinced to return. And why was it only now that the government would issue student visas?

The minister also needed to explain what had happened to the MTA's segments, especially as some of them had not held any meetings for months.

Clearly, the MTA needed to position itself closer to its markets and clients. That, indeed, should have been the work of the various segments.

It was taking far too long for decisions to be taken, as in the case of the master plan for the diving industry. After eight months the MTA had not yet found time to meet the Gozo Tourism Association. There was nothing to justify this long time, and the association had every right to feel ignored and abandoned.

Had any follow-up been made after Nicolas Sarkozy's visit?

The tourism sector was also crying out for better coordination. It was unacceptable that roads were dug up outside hotels when the tourism season opened, or cruise passengers found the quay congested with containers.

Mr Bartolo said a real debate was needed on two- and three-star accommodation. Almost all countries had a wide range of tourist accommodation, but Malta was seeing a decreasing number of beds in these categories.

With the growing importance of "do-it-yourself holidays" Malta also needed to give greater importance to self-catering accommodation. One needed to review the way licences were issued for this sector. Was it fair that an owner of 10 apartments paid for 10 licences? Furthermore, one needed to consider networking and clusters in this sector.

Mr Bartolo said questions needed to be answered over why the competitiveness of Malta's tourism industry had slipped and why market share was also on the decline. Tourism was a growing industry internationally, but the local sector was growing nowhere near as fast.

The answer lay in several aspects, including unbridled development and lack of meaningful research. But the important thing was to learn from past mistakes. It was useless to lure a visitor to Malta only to find that what had been promised was not there. Joseph Cuschieri (MLP) said things finally seemed to be going better at the MTA, after years of instability and changes at the top. However there did not seem to be real, effective communication between the MTA and the various sectors involved in tourism.

The advent of low-cost carriers was pointing in the right direction, but far too many hotels were closing down, especially in the lower categories. Did this indicate a drop in the confidence of tourism operators? Incentives needed to be given to save these hotel categories, at least in order to give the visitor a wider choice of accommodation.

Mr Cuschieri said too many projects kept being promised with little really being done about them. This was especially true of the new golf course, cruise liner berthing facilities in Gozo, better beaches, enhanced facilities on rock beaches, and beach cleaning. Fish farming was having particular adverse effects on the marine environment.

Another bad effect on tourism was construction, even in infrastructural and tourism-related projects. In some cases it was the government itself that was to blame with delays on some of its own projects.

Mr Cuschieri said the European Commission's recent decision to discontinue subsidies on fuel for light aircraft and yachts had hit Malta hard. The decision must be fought tooth and nail.

Winding up, Dr Zammit Dimech reacted to Mr Bartolo's comments, saying services to Luton had been offered to all airlines, and the government would have had no problem with both Ryanair and EasyJet flying from that airport to Malta, but unfortunately no agreement was reached with the latter.

He said tour operators had been requesting greater financing with the intention of bringing more tourists to Malta. Tour operators remained important for Malta, but the important thing was to have a good mix of source markets, and he agreed that the authority should demand value for the assistance it gave.

As for CNN, the MTA continuously monitored results from its marketing and advertising and had to balance its outlay with expected results.

Assistance was being given for the holding the powerboat races because of their strong marketing value, their appeal to young tourists, the extensive TV coverage and the new marketing contacts that were established.

Dr Zammit Dimech said funds had to be spent on the planned golf course because such a course would have been useful for tourism, and the studies would remain useful for the new natural park, from which tourism would also benefit.

As for host families, contrary to what some perceived, no new taxes had been introduced. Over the past few days talks were held with Feltom (the federation of language schools) on incentives for host families, and the MTA was ready to reduce the contribution which host families made to the authority because it was important that the number of host families grew. The decision would be communicated to the families shortly.

The MTA was extending its campaign in France in the wake of the unexpected Sarkozy visit.

No meeting had been held between the MTA and the Gozo Tourism Association because no agreement was reached on dates, but the governemnt's commitment to Gozo tourism was undoubted and he looked forward to meeting the association.

He agreed on the need to expand the tourism net, which he said should also include India, which was another fast-growing market.

As for branding, the local phase had been concluded and the accent now was on overseas branding, which was included in the marketing budget.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that while the MIA's contribution to the MTA was now Lm100,000, the MIA spent another Lm100,000 on its own marketing initiatives in agreement with the MTA.

As for the Ghadira beach concessions, it was true that the fees had increased but it was worth pointing out that the MTA had absorbed the costs of beach cleaning which the concessionaires were supposed to do. The government had not reduced the size of any of the concessions beyond what the operators had title over in agreement with the Lands Department, but it was well known that some of these concessions had continued to grow and grow and this was unacceptable.

The estimates were later approved after a division.