Language schools demand visa boost

English language schools are bringing in a considerable number of visitors from emerging tourist markets but more support is needed in marketing and granting visas to boost arrivals further, according to the president of the English language teaching federation.

English language students accounted for 35 per cent of all tourist arrivals from Russia, 33 per cent from Turkey, 41 per cent from South Korea, and in the region of 20 per cent from Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Brazil last year.

The figures were highlighted at the presentation of the 2011 Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations Malta (Feltom) industry survey report last Tuesday.

“I appeal to the authorities for increased support in these markets, especially when it comes to marketing and visas,” Feltom president Alex Fenech said.

The benchmarking report conducted by Deloitte is based on figures from the National Statistics Office and the results of a survey taken by Feltom members.

The report shows that although year-on-year student arrivals fell nearly five per cent to 69,297 in 2011, schools managed to increase their gross operating profit per student week by 49 per cent.

This increase was attributed by Mr Fenech to schools reviewing their pricing policies. Schools had faced criticism the previous year for engaging in an aggressive price war in a bid to bring arrival figures back up towards the record levels of 2007 and 2008.

The report also showed that the average length of stay increased by nearly four per cent to 18.4 nights, as compared with 8.3 nights for the average tourist.

Revenue per student week increased by five per cent to €283.

Despite promising revenue figures, Mr Fenech described 2011 as “a difficult year for Malta’s ELT (English Language Training) industry”.

The loss of the Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza per i Dipendenti dell’Amministrazione Pubblica contract and a €500 reduction in the amount paid to Spanish scholarship students had a significant impact on the amount of students travelling to Malta, Mr Fenech said.

Indeed, arrivals from Italy and Spain were down 21 per cent and 37 per cent respectively from the previous year.

Nonetheless, Italy still provided the most student arrivals with 12,364, followed by Germany (11,874), Russia (8,238) and France (8,083).

Violence in Libya early in the year also led to a number of cancellations of junior groups concerned about Malta’s proximity to the troubled country.