Holidaymakers are often disappointed when they rent out a farmhouse, imagining they will be staying in a building with a sense of history but then end up in a modern building with rustic imitation furniture, a Tourism Authority report noted.

So in order to avoid this misleading labelling of holiday furnished premises, the authority is recommending restricting the label “farmhouse” to those authentic buildings that live up to the name and introducing the label “country home” for the newer imitations.

“There are many cases where a farmhouse licence is granted to new buildings which have been merely constructed in a rustic style and at times even located in urban areas,” according to the report that adds the problem is more pronounced in Gozo.

Entitled Tourism Product of the Maltese Islands the report – carried out by government consultant George Micallef on the request of the authority – provides a snapshot of the tourism landscape and makes over 200 recommendations to improve the product.

Speaking during the launch at the National Aquarium in Qawra, Tourism Authority CEO JosefFormosa Gauci said 2013 was a record year in terms of tourist arrivals, nights and expenditure.

One of the authority’s priorities was to ensure that the tourism product was attractive and met expectations. For this reason it commissioned the report, that would now be open for consultation, with the aim of translating it into a product plan, he said.

Tourism Minister Karmenu Vella said that, while Malta was seeing record figures, numbers were not the only way to measure success. One had to look at product, quality, profitability and sustainability, among other things.

He stressed on the need to focus on quality and to start competing “more on quality rather than price”. Mr Micallef then went on to give an overview of the extensive report that touched on a wide range of subjects including accommodation, catering, Gozo, service and transport.

Research showed that while the vast majority of tourists were satisfied after coming to Malta, about seven per cent said they would not return and pinned this on dirty environments, over construction, bad experiences with accommodation, poor local transport and unfriendly locals.

These factors had to be addressed, he said.

The report, which will soon be available on the MTA’s website, included recommendations to expand Malta’s tourism product beyond the summer months.

“We need to send a strong message out there that Malta is a destination for all seasons. We need to provide a range of activities to give visitors something to do. There are a large amount of activities that are also unknown to locals – they must be catalogued and marketed,” Mr Micallef said.

Some recommendations:

• Amend the licensing term of “host family” to “resident host,” and introduce the “student host family” label.

• Extend the maximum capacity of host families from four to six.

• Provide incentives for restoration of historic buildings.

• Issue a stern warning against growing unlicensed accommodation.

• Consider setting up a national agency for the management of the rural and coastal areas.

• A definition and classification criteria should be designed for the classification of boutique hotels.

• Look at possibilities of introducing incentives, to discriminate positively towards restaurants offering local dishes.