As part of a pilot project organised by PKF Malta, a survey was conducted among tourists to evaluate their perception on a number of facilities and services offered in Malta. The survey was conducted in various places in Ċirkewwa, Valletta and St Julian’s in mid-July.

The findings obtained from this survey were presented to and discussed with officials from both the NSO and MHRA. Restaurants and hotels fared quite well, and 86 per cent of all respondents gave positive ratings to the quality of the rooms of their accommodation while 65 per cent gave such ratings to the quality of food served in restaurants. The fly in the ointment was evident where service is concerned as this has significant room for improvement.

Another grievance was public bus transport, where 35 per cent of all respondents gave ratings of ‘very poor’ or ‘poor’ to the current bus schedule. Males as well as respondents aged 18 to 27 seemed to be the most critical of this service. Bus drivers’ helpfulness and the quality of buses were rated better than the schedules, yet there was still a significant amount of respondents who were dissatisfied with these services.

Ticket prices on the other hand were quite well received.

Moving on to cleanliness, a number of respondents found cities and roads to be quite dirty with 24 per cent and 37 per cent of all respondents giving bad ratings to these important aspects of cities and roads respectively. Tourists complained about the number of broken bottles, plastic bottles, cigarette butts and rubbish left lying around. Archaeological and cultural sites were not so popular with younger respondents and those aged 48-57 also showed a tendency not to visit these sites.

The study further revealed that 74 per cent of respondents gave ratings of ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ based on their expectations whilst 72 per cent gave similar ratings with respect to good value for money spent during their stay.

Sixty-five per cent of all respondents said they would consider revisiting Malta in the future. Twenty per cent said they ‘don’t know’ and the remaining 15 per cent said ‘no’. However, 72 per cent of those who answered ‘no’ were females.

The justifications behind such negative answers included the fact that the respondents wanted to visit other places, that they had spent enough time in Malta and that visiting Malta once was more than enough.

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