Marketing Malta

It seems that this year was not at all a record year for tourists as we were led to believe – profits have gone down. Well it’s not only the hotels that are feeling the pinch. I guess nearly every sector is more or less in the same boat. One can even say it’s time we smelt the grass and took a real look at the way things really are.

I have worked in the hotel sector for over four years in various hotels around Malta and some of the complaints I used to get... well no wonder our tourist industry is on the rocks.

However, it’s not just the hotels that need to pull up their socks and start giving value for money, adequate service and a good standard of accommodation. It is Malta itself that needs a good shake-up.

How can anyone expect to attract quality tourists when we are not a top quality island?

It’s not about promoting Malta and just posting good rates, nice photos and advertising the best parts of the islands in the sun. It’s not about getting a tourist here for a one-off stay. It’s about bringing them back time and time again. But I guess not many will be back, and why is the biggest question of all.

It’s time the people at the tourism authority put themselves in the shoes of the tourist and started seeing what the tourist is seeing, for Malta is nothing but a dirty building site, with broken roads, rubbish blowing in the streets, rubbish bags that have not been collected from the previous morning, empty beer cans, plastic bottles, dust and more dust, overstretched traffic lines, and even a poor bus service which our tourists had to face this year.

The Valletta market was one of the Sunday highlights (which for some reason has been hidden in a back lane in Marsa) that tourists enjoyed, buying the odd souvenir and even taking a nice stroll in Valletta afterwards. They were out to see true Maltese culture, which is something that we are constantly losing. It’s a shame for we can do much better than what we are doing now. All it takes is a bit of pride and respect in ourselves and our islands, which also has to come from our government.

Alfred Sant once said Malta could be the Switzerland of the Mediterranean. I believe we are already that and always have been, however, over the years we have done nothing but neglect our beautiful islands. It’s time we opened our eyes to the facts, for we are the ones that are blind and not the tourist.