Malta should work to get on the list of countries of people visiting Europe for a long haul holiday, Tourism Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco said this morning.

Speaking during an Malta Tourism Authority information seminar for stakeholders, Dr de Marco said that tourism seemed to have taken a turn for the better with arrivals in December increasing by 10 per cent according to official statistics.

In February there was a four per cent increase in arrivals and in March there was an increase of 12.3 per cent in passenger movements, according to Malta International Airport.

Dr de Marco said that he was yesterday at an informal Council of Ministers meeting for tourism ministers and all indicators led one to be cautiously optimistic.

It was estimated that the rate of growth this year would be between one and three per cent. The main factors affecting tourism, he said, were unemployment in Europe, the price of oil and recession.

Dr de Marco said that towards the end of 2008 the government had said that 2009 was going to be a difficult year for the tourism industry, especially since 2007 and 2008 were two record years.

The Parliamentary Secretary spoke about working to ensure that Malta was among the list of multiple destinations of long haul visitors to Europe.

He said that even though 2009 was a difficult year, the government continued to invest and it increased its marketing efforts.

It also created a number of incentives to help hoteliers, including a moratorium on bank loans to help hotels get through the difficult time.

There were many hotels that were past their expiry date and needed to refurbish and come up with new ideas. He also spoke about the importance of investing in boutique hotels.

Even though a few were going down that road, he said, more such hotels were needed to create a different experience. There was also a need for restaurants and hoteliers to make a quality leap and increase the level of services of the products they were offering.

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