Opposition calls for sustainability in tourism

Opposition tourism spokesman Evarist Bartolo said yesterday that while this year's increase in tourism arrivals was welcome, the government needed to plan ahead to the time when low-cost airlines could no longer be subsidised to fly to Malta.

The comment was made when Parliament debated the budget estimates of the Tourism Ministry.

He said much of the increase in arrivals this year was due to low-cost airlines which were being subsidised to fly to Malta. But what would happen once the subsidy ended in 2012 in line with EU requirements? Malta needed to attract tourism through market-driven organisations and not through those who were attracted by subsidies.

Mr Bartolo insisted that the benefits of tourism needed to be enjoyed by all areas of Malta, including Gozo and the south.

The current situation, he said, was such that Malta was recovering from the losses of the past few years. But the industry needed to start making profits. Malta needed a long-term plan for tourism growth and not crisis management.

Millions of liri were being spent on marketing and advertising but the product needed to be reviewed. Malta must be considered as being one big open-air museum and the national heritage must be safeguarded. Ongoing construction works were not helping tourism. The inter-governmental committee which was meant to see to the embellishment of the Maltese islands had failed. It did not meet regularly and when it did the agenda was retroactive. The direction for change must come from the very top but this committee was holding back progress.

Mr Bartolo complained that Malta was still catering for group tourism, even though this was being taking over by individual tourists. Budget hotels must take the place of two- or three-star hotels which had closed or were closing down. A Labour government would help operators change their accommodation to budget accommodation levels.

The Malta Tourism Authority was continuing to wallow in internal difficulties. Evidence of the absence of a strategic plan for tourism was the way how the government treated schools of English. The government had discouraged host families through the way it applied taxation and their number had declined. Labour would like to see the language schools operate throughout the year and not just in the summer months.

One way how to expand the sector was to look to Asia, but Malta needed to ease visa requirements in the same way as Ireland was doing. Last summer students were housed in hotels with higher-paying tourists who complained about the young people's behaviour. This was not helpful for tourism and there needed to be more incentives for host families.

The Labour in government between 1997-98 had shown the way through empowerment to the monitoring boards of the various components of the tourism industry. These should draw up a three-year plan and have an independent budget to promote their sector.

Mr Bartolo said he was in favour of the Gozo Tourism Authority having an independent budget for Gozo. Gozitans felt there was a commercial conflict of interest between Maltese and Gozitan operators.

If a subsidy was needed to operate the helicopter service between Malta and Gozo, then it should be made available. This was allowed under EU funding for disadvantaged regions.

Mr Bartolo said the tourism product in Bugibba and Qawra needed to be updated. Those localities were conceived for mass tourism which was today changing. Malta, however, could not afford to have any areas falling behind.

Mr Bartolo said Malta was wasting time on the development of golf courses. Maghtab appeared to be an ideal site for a golf course, although adapting it would not be without its problems. Golf tourism had huge potential and Malta was losing millions of liri in potential earnings because the sole golf course at Marsa was too small. Indeed contracts for Swedish golf tourists had been cancelled because the Marsa club could not cope. There was need to develop the Marsa facility and build another two courses, in Malta and Gozo, without harming the environment.

The same argument applied for the development of yacht marinas and blue flag beaches.

Mr Bartolo said he could not understand how Malta was spending millions on sewage treatment, and then it was allowing fish farms, with their related waste, close to popular beaches and dive sites. These farms had dirtied the waters and harmed ecology. The least that could be done was to move them further offshore.

The protection of the national heritage needed to be an essential element of product development and diversification. Although some work was being done, much more was needed. Scant resources needed to be employed in the best possible manner, with every encouragement being given to people who could and wished to give a helping hand. There was also need for closer cooperation between culture and education. Too few Maltese pupils were visiting museums. The upgrading made in some of the museums was welcome. Malta should also consider lending exhibits for display abroad because this could act as useful publicity.

Mr Bartolo said regulation and bureacracy needed to be reviewed. Standards had to be maintained without undermining competitiveness. Regulations and taxation should be at a par with competing destinations. It made no sense to copy paste regulations in place in Australia, simply because they were in English. A Labour government would assess the compliance costs element in Maltese tourist packages with a view to reducing them and improve the tourism sector's competitiveness.

Law enforcement, however, was important. That included the enforcement of construction rules in tourist areas, cleanliness, noise and alcohol consumption by young people.

Mr Bartolo said Malta needed to attract more airlines to Malta, whether low cost or legacy. This was important also to enable more cruise liners to start cruises from Grand Harbour. It would be especially useful if Malta could have direct flights from the United States, given the potential from that market.

The government needed to draw up a development plan for Air Malta in recognition of its central role for the tourism industry. The exodus of pilots from the airline was worrying.

Concluding, Mr Bartolo said he was confident that Malta had the resources and expertise necessary to make tourism the success which the country deserved.

Earlier in the debate, Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri said that the past four years had seen ups and down in the tourism sector. Government promises had not been kept. Neither had targets. It was only this year that tourist arrivals had started to climb, but this only constituted a recovery from past losses. In both arrivals and earnings from tourism, Malta was only returning to the situation in 2003-2004.

This sector, like the others, had been burdened by new taxes, charges and bureaucracy which eroded its competitiveness. As a result a number of hotels had closed down and another three were expected to close by the end of the year.

Three years ago the government promised to raise arrivals by 50,000 visitors each year. That was not achieved in 2005 and 2006, and although things were expected to pick up this year, it would not be enough to compensate.

Other promises not kept by the government included the redevelopment of the crafts village, the development of golf courses, the White Rocks project and a yacht marina in Xemxija.

Mr Cuschieri said Malta's tourism growth was slower than that of competitor destinations .

One could even go so far as to describe the budget as irrelevant because promises it made were not expected to be met. The government was simply trying to erase the last five years and redeem itself. Operators and employees of the tourism sector wanted a new vision which Labour would provide, raising arrivals to 1.6 million and earnings to Lm620 million per year.

Carmelo Abela, opposition spokesman for culture, said the support being given to arts and culture in the budget was too little. Happily, the government had adopted some of Labour's ideas, including reducing tax on cultural events, after having originally criticised them.

Mr Abela said he was a strong supporter of cultural events by both Maltese and overseas artistes, however, he felt that there should be some form of specific help for local artists. The Isle of MTV party was a good idea but it should have been ensured that local talent had sufficient coverage.

He referred to the Akkademja tal-Muzika fil-Mediterran and asked how many experts had been consulted and whether the University would have a say in this issue. He emphasised that linking our country with quality music was a good thing and, however, one should never forget things on a local level. The Johann Strauss School of Music the Music Department at the University could both do with proper funding. In the past five years the Johann Strauss school hadn't been given the necessary funding for maintenance works. He also mentioned commendable cultural acts such as Notte Bianca and Notte Magica, which could certainly be praised for promoting our culture.

Yet, there was nothing in the budget about the Maltese carnival and the long promised carnival village. It had been said that the National Orchestra would expand but the orchestra needed a base, Mr Abela said.

Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando said that he had recently attended a meeting of the MHRA with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and he could see first hand the importance that Dr Gonzi gave to tourism in Malta and how closely he looked out for it.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said EU funding had been very useful for Malta and the tourism sector had benefited as well, notably from infrastructural improvements. The adoption of the euro would benefit many tourism sectors.

He underlined the importance of further beach development and said such work should respect the environment and be completed as soon as possible.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said that he found it amusing how opposition MPs were speaking about the benefits of low-cost airlines for the tourism industry after Labour leader Alfred Sant had initially criticised their introduction.

He highlighted the problem of unruly language students, particularly those staying in hotels, and insisted that they should not be allowed to harm tourism in general.

Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech, replying to the opposition's remarks, said the government had not introduced any new tax on tourism, even when the country had to impose the electricity surcharge. In fact, an additional assistance of Lm2 million was given to operators in the sector.

On language schools, he said that some host families had thought that their income from this activity was tax-free. This was not the case. Faced by such a situation of tax evasion, the government felt it must control the situation and introduced the right formula: The first Lm1,000 of income were exempt, 33 per cent in excess was deemed to be expenses and tax was imposed only on the remaining one-third. Host families were also exempt from social security contributions.

Dr Zammit Dimech denied that the government had copied proposals from the Labour tourism and culture plan. On the contrary, it was the Labour plan that copied from government proposals, he said.

Labour was promising that it would see what development land remained for tourism purposes in the north and entrapreneurs would then be given incentives to embark on new projects.

The minister said that if this was to happen, it would constitute unfair competition between the operators. But did the opposition know what public land remained and whether it could be developed? According to public plans there was only a limited area available and one large area in St Paul's Bay which was earmarked for agricultural land.

Referring to Labour MP Carmelo Abela's comments on VAT on cultural activities, Dr Zammit Dimech said the tax in Malta was the lowest allowed by the EU.

The minister said that the government was updating its cultural policy but there was nothing wrong in the fact that a commercial emphasis was made on certain cultural activities, like Notte Bianca, because such activities produced commercial benefits.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that the government was conscious as to the time when subsidies to low-cost airlines would have to end. All options were being considered but, luckily, Malta had the benefit of seeing the experience of the other countries whose five-year subsidy term would expire before that of Malta.

But, even so, who could imagine Ryanair folding up after 2010 when subsidies ended?

Referring to the tourism committee headed by the Prime Minister, Dr Zammit Dimech said that the amount of work done by this committee was part and parcel of the government's tourism plan.

The government was also delegating to the stakeholders in Gozo but it was investing in the sister island as part of the national campaigns.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that this year Malta would welcome a record number of cruise liner passengers.

Malta, he said, was improving its air connections, with low-cost airlines in particular, launching new routes to and from Malta. Recently added destinations included Valencia and Stockholm.

Air Malta, however, retained its central importance as the Maltese national airline and the airline the country could most rely on. The MTA was working with Air Malta and similar legacy airlines on marketing campaigns, since it did not only support the low-cost airlines.

From January to September of this year, there had been 72,775 one-way low-cost flights to Malta, as well as over 43,000 BritishJet flights, which in a sense was low cost. They accounted for nine per cent of the total flights into Malta.

Dr Zammit Dimech agreed that it was a sad fact that some hotels had to close down, however, this was part of the renewal process. One of the hotels that was closing down was still going to remain in the tourism sector, since it was going to open as a student hostel over the summer months.

Referring to language students who disturbed other tourists in hotels, he said there had to be a way to accommodate students in separate conditions from other tourists.

The minister underscored the way the events calendar in Malta had been extended and made more varied, with events ranging from training camps by top soccer clubs to the Andrea Bocelli concert. All this made for a better tourist product.

The budget featured a number of initiatives that would further promote culture, such as funds for the arts, tax rebates given to those offering scholarships to students and reduced tax on cultural activities. He said a museum of contemporary art would be opened in Gozo shortly.

Dr Zammit Dimech said the fact that the Opposition speakers never mentioned Heritage Malta spoke volumes. This agency had raised awareness of Malta's heritage, rehabilitated museums and put up prestigious exhibitions such as the Chinese terracotta soldiers exhibition and now the Caravaggio exhibition.

The National Orchestra would reach the level of a symphony orchestra in the near future and one should be proud by its performance.

Having the Mediterranean Music Academy headed by Mro Riccardo Muti was an honour. The minister said he was impressed with a heading in an Italian newspaper which said that half the world wanted Mro Muti but he chose Malta.

Concluding, the minister said there was high-level quality in tourism and culture and this trend would continue in the future.