New NSTS hostel for foreign students

NSTS has acquired a new property to add to its portfolio of properties hosting foreign students. The substantial investment is aimed at strengthening the services the company provides to this particular market in the tourism industry.

The new property will bring the total number of beds under the organisation's management to over 450. As Francis Stivala, managing director of NSTS explains, this is one of the initiatives taken towards addressing a manifest void in the proper servicing of our younger visitors.

A leading student and youth organisation, 55 years down the line NSTS is still setting the pace through innovation and quality assurance. With its dedicated team and management, and its eagerness to provide well chosen services on the island, students continue to benefit from the organisation's experience and drive.

NSTS first associated itself with the management of a small youth hostel in Buġibba in the resort's very early days, when it attracted German students to spend a holiday in Malta. Not long after that, additional investment was poured into a larger establishment to meet the growing demand from this almost land-locked country.

When NSTS opened the first English language school in Malta in the early 1960s, its student directors turned their attention to more inviting properties in the Sliema/St Julian's area, settling for the management of a 150-bed college to accommodate language students in summer. The success of the language school spurred a greater demand for more beds that could provide a proper and safe haven for young people. NSTS always professed that services for travelling students must account for the distinctive behavioural characteristics they display and cannot be a simple extension of the services designed for mainstream tourism when occupancy falls below expectation.

This commitment has been vindicated in recent years with the acceptance of young English language students accommodated alongside mainstream tourists in a number of hotels of all categories.

Although much more laborious and costly, NSTS continued to consolidate its energies in developing appropriate accommodation centres that address the particular needs of students and that respect the expectations of Maltese society.

Mr Stivala says this long-standing commitment has borne its fruits on the international market and has given NSTS a unique branding in relation to its provision of English language courses for teenagers during the summer months.

The well over 1,000 beds in collective properties that are filled every summer are complemented by another NSTS venture that goes back 45 years, when the company recruited select Maltese families to accommodate students in their own homes.

This original privilege has developed into an industry in its own right, as Maltese hospitality radiated out from each family's heart and drove NSTS to recruit more and more families. Today, NSTS shares this patrimony with other schools but has given it its imprint by drafting the fundamental standards that have since then been incorporated into national minimum conditions for host family accommodation.

"We realised that if minimum quality standards were not established, it would be difficult to ensure the high standards we were so famed for," Mr Stivala says. He recognises that enforcement has not been effectively consistent and this has brought about a shift in demand towards more reliable collective types of accommodation.

NSTS is known to be flexible and quick in reading the writing on the wall and picking up market trends. The new acquisition is no exception, as it follows fast on the heels of a considerable refurbishment project of another accommodation property that is fully managed by NSTS.

Exciting plans are underway to transform the new property into a trendy habitat for the under-35s. Mr Stivala maintains that in keeping with the NSTS brand, this property must be given its own youthful identity and be internationally promoted as such, thereby sending out a clear message on the type of ambience one is bound to land in upon setting foot on the doorstep.

He is currently active seeking the best interior designer who can interpret his ideas into designs that appease the target age group and is eager to give the go-ahead to start the transformation. He is particularly pleased to note that his objectives are well supported by a national policy directed to make Malta a centre of excellence of learning in the Mediterranean.

"Whereas we teach English, and this is an end in itself, we have launched a wider range of courses and entered into the field of international education where English is simply the medium of learning. This opens a totally new vista also for our accommodation properties as we venture deeper into long-term tuition", he elaborates.

His eyes are also set on students attracted by other educational institutions, such as the University, that may not have the capacity to develop their own long-term accommodation facilities to satisfy the number of foreign students they can teach.

This is a niche market yet untapped, but its potential is evident. This planned development is being thoroughly researched, but given its popularity abroad, is expected to attract even more students to Malta's shores.

The organisation's formula for student travel can be traced back to its very roots. Mr Stivala has been involved in NSTS even before he graduated from the University of Malta.

"Throughout my years at NSTS and the excellent international experiences that have taught me and shaped my career, I acknowledge that the youth and student travel industry stands apart from mainstream travel and demands understanding and specialised services as the primary keys to success. It is characterised by the insatiable urge of discovery and learning and requires freedom from conventionalism. In exchange, it offers rewarding satisfaction, resilience to economic swings and a niche market that is growing faster than most other travel segments." Mr Stivala says.

No wonder NSTS enjoys a magnificent history and faces the future with confidence.