Dispelling myths

Much has been said and is being said about tourism in Malta. It has become the norm for the government to look positive even at the bleakest of times. It has become the standard policy for the government to fudge a situation. Furthermore, the government keeps on projecting the perception and repeating the mantra that when the tourist industry faces serious challenges due to international socio-economic and political changes it will overcome such challenges fairly easily. Many myths have been created over the years to exclude the much-needed focus on what the industry really requires. Time is now ripe and, indeed, well overdue to dispel such myths.

To use the same kind of misleading parameters as those used by the government... 2008 was a good year for tourism in Malta. December 2008 saw a decline in departing tourists of 12.4 per cent. Figures just published by MIA show a drop in passenger movements in January 2009 of 12 per cent compared to the same month in 2008. Per capita tourism expenditure, which is ultimately what matters, declined by six per cent in 2008 compared to 2007.

The year 2009 is going to be globally a bad year for tourism... expert opinions and a multitude of studies show that, despite the economic crisis, a holiday still ranks highest in peoples' discretionary spending, that is, they would rather go on holiday than change their car. Indeed, a report published by the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) as recently as January 12, 2009, talks of an emotional lift known as "sunticipation" or "welcome relief from the gloom".

If advance bookings for Malta for 2009 are a disaster other neighbouring countries are booming, among which are Turkey, Croatia, and Egypt, all of which have one thing in common. They have soft-currencies vis-à-vis the euro.

That low-cost carriers are our salvation is a wrong notion. There is a place for both LCC and legacy carriers in Malta but we have gone about attracting LCCs in the wrong way. Giving a €25 per passenger subsidy to LCCs is not only counter-productive but short-sighted.

Too many LCCs have come, milked away our subsidy in the peak period and then packed and left us in the lurch. New routes were opened that lasted one season. Worse still, foreign LCCs were enticed with the hefty subsidy, replaced established Air Malta routes such as Oslo and Stockholm and have now stopped flying, leaving terribly important sources of tourism, such as Norway, with no flights whatsoever.

We have to dispel the myth that the bad patch that started in the middle of last year will just wash away with the first sign of economic recovery in our source markets. It will not! Our underlying problems are structural in nature, primarily related to the facts that: (1) we have absolutely no brand value; (2) we no longer offer value for money; (3) our overall tourism product stinks.

We have to dispel the myth that simply by having fancy "tourism policies" on paper our tourism problems will be solved. Problem-solving requires policy, planning but most of all action by all stakeholders, particularly the government.

We need to regain our competitiveness by offering a value-for-money product. State investment is needed urgently in tourism product development and that does not include €16 million in digging a quarry in the middle of Valletta by hijacking funds from the tourism vote, a project which has now, thankfully, bitten the dust. There needs to be cohesion between marketing and product, otherwise all efforts will be doomed to fail.

Last, but certainly not least, we need to take sustainability seriously by halting the destruction of the iconic cultural and visual attributes that make Malta an attractive nation-state which tourists long to experience.

To give the benefit of the doubt, the government in Malta is at worst incompetent or at best in a state of denial. The tourism industry players, however, that is the men and women who earn their daily crumb from tourism, know that their days at work are numbered. Directly and indirectly tourism accounts for about 41,000 jobs in Malta (source: Economic Survey).

Thousands of jobs will be at stake in the tourism industry in the coming months and many have started losing their jobs already. The pity is that when a major manufacturing concern announces the laying off of hundreds of employees, the establishment shakes, as it should. However, when hundreds of hotels and restaurants shed two or five workers each, or simply close down to be replaced by flats, no headlines are made.

Ms Coleiro Preca is shadow minister for tourism.

mlcoleiropreca@gmail.mt