The year is looking good for tourism, with all the indicators and summer bookings rising across the broad spectrum of the industry. After the upturn in 2010 that is welcome. It shows focus by the Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, justifying rumours that he will become a minister in a forthcoming Cabinet restructuring, and by the Malta Tourism Authority.

It also shows that Malta is sharing in the global upswing, also benefiting from fall-out from the political unrest in Tunisia and Egypt which hit hard their tourism industry. A report in The Times on Monday showed that Cyprus too is doing well. The island saw tourism revenue climbing by a remarkable 53 per cent during April year-on year.

The official statistics also showed that revenue increased by 23.7 per cent during the four months ending April. Economic observers were very satisfied with these results, but particularly so because January-April was 7.5 per cent up on 2008.

This trend was also observable in Malta, though at a lower magnitude. The average length of stays in Malta is also below Cyprus’ 9.3 days. The island, far bigger than Malta and with more varied attractions, though none as striking as our fortifications and older heritage, has double our tourist inflow.

Comparisons are not always odious. The economic type helps a country to measure its performance against comparable benchmarks. The local story so far is good, also seeing us beat the outturn for the first nine months of 2008, before the five quarters long downturn began. It still has more to go to enable hoteliers to restore their profitability as in 2007/08. Nor is there ever room for pause in what is a dynamic industry.

The eventual return of tourists to Egypt and Tunisia to pre -Arab Spring levels, for instance, will see competition by Mediterranean locations intensifying. There can be no slip up in Malta’s efforts. Factors that are key to a sustainable good performance have to be stringently monitored and nurtured. It is essential, for example, that the forthcoming restructuring of Air Malta allows the main carrier of visitors to Malta to continue with that role.

It is glib to say that losses in Air Malta carrying capacity will be made up by other carriers, especially the low-cost carriers. That will not necessarily be the case. Competitiveness must also be kept under scrutiny. It is true, say, that the cost of food inputs is rising fast. Nevertheless one does get the feeling that the cost of dining out in Malta has gone up unduly across the board.

Beyond food costs and hotel rates, still under pressure, there is a need to intensify the drive to give as much value for money as possible. The cleaning up of, and beautifying the island, has to be upped, although much effort is already being made. The roads programme requires more funds. It is not only the major roads that have to be on the radar screen.

Marketing by the Malta Tourism Authority needs upgrading, even if it is felt that results are telling a success story. The Authority can never have enough funds at its disposal, particularly since a large chunk of them go to support the low-cost airlines. Advertising can do with fresh thinking.

For instance, the fortnight to Sunday millions of viewers who follow tennis were glued to their television sets, watching the French Open for males and females. Many watched it, as we did in Malta, on the Eurosports channel. They were able to see history being made, as China’s Na Li became the first lady to win a singles grand slam, and Rafael Nadal won his sixth French Open singles title, to equal the record set 20 years ago by Bjorn Borg.

They were able to see more than that. The bulk of the adverts carried by Eurosports were tourism adverts. The most prominent two promoted Mediterranean destinations, giving a glimpse of the charms of Croatia, with two brilliant adverts, and Egypt. Morocco also featured well, as did much more distant Caribbean destinations. No doubt there will also be similar advertising in the forthcoming Wimbledon tournament.

The MTA might do worse than consider allocating part of its advertising budget to buy Eurosports space during these tournaments next year. As I watched Eurosports I recalled that, up to a few years ago, the channel used to carry live an international snooker tournament which took place in Malta. I believe the MTA sponsored that tournament.

If there is a good reason why it has stopped doing so, it has not been made widely known. It is possible that the sponsorship bit too much into the Authority’s advertising budget. Whether that too much was so on the basis of cost-benefit calculations is another matter. Stopping the tournament took Malta off an important European platform.

Increasingly more attention is being paid to promoting Malta as a heritage attraction. That is understandable. But promotion has to cater for a select mix. Sports enthusiasts are usually among the most avid of watchers.

The MTA does not have an easy task to keep Malta on an upward trend. It needs more financial resources, plus all the imagination it can muster.