The new, energetic Minister for Tourism, Edward Zammit Lewis, has focused on “quality” as the centrepiece of his plan for Malta’s tourism future. He quotes approvingly that the World Tourism Organisation’s (WTO) central objective for tourism development is: “The result of a process which implies the satisfaction of all the legitimate product and service needs, requirements and expectations of the consumer at an acceptable price, in conformity with mutually acceptable contractual conditions and the underlying quality determinants such as safety and security, hygiene, accessibility, transparency, authenticity and harmony of the tourism activity concerned with its human and natural environment”.

What he extracts from this typically clunking bureaucratic statement by the WTO is that “quality standards need to permeate every aspect of tourism operations…Provision of quality in tourism is not an option but a must”.

How right he is. And how often have we heard successive ministers for tourism here say this over the last 50 years?

The fact is that despite our well-intentioned aspirations to offer a quality tourism experience to the one and a half million visitors who travel to Malta each year, the product offered falls woefully short. We are attracting tourists to Malta under a false and misleading prospectus.

The road network and traffic congestion, the taxi and public transport services, the standards of service in many hotels and restaurants, the over-crowded, dirty public beaches, the general tattiness of the island, its well-earned reputation as an ugly, permanent building site, its vanishing countryside, the constant intrusive noise, the pollution and the way the environment is treated, all these factors spell not quality but squalor.

I challenge anybody to walk for more than 50 metres anywhere in the countryside or the town (perhaps Mdina is the one exception) without encountering litter, rubbish, noise, shabbiness and ever-encroaching and disfiguring construction development.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the problem of dirt and litter all over the island is a national disgrace which successive governments have tried to address, but which they have signally failed to overcome in the face of a national culture that is pathologically incapable of understanding that keeping one’s own house impeccably clean does not permit one to dirty and litter everywhere else, as is patently the case.

If the “consultative committee” and the “tourism zones national committee” which the Minister has just set up, are able to find an answer to this cultural problem and Malta’s infrastructural deficiencies, he will be well on his way to achieving a quality product.

There are, of course, redeeming features. We have a handful of top-class hotels. We have many good, if sometimes over-priced, restaurants. The cultural heritage is outstanding. The climate is superb. The Maltese, taken individually, are delightful: warm, friendly, helpful, gregarious and generous. Most speak more than passable English, the global language. The country is relatively safe and secure.

Are these factors taken together enough to spell real quality, or are they outweighed by the awfulness of our infrastructure and environment? While we can continue to ride on the back of these positive attributes – as indeed our advertising and marketing media consistently, if misleadingly, stress – there will come a point at which the real lack of quality of our product will find us out. The paucity of repeat visitors may already be sending that message.

I challenge anybody to walk for more than 50 metres without encountering litter, rubbish, noise, shabbiness and disfiguring construction development

Despite the successes achieved in attracting high tourist numbers in recent years, thanks essentially to the arrival of cheap flight travel and the widespread unrest throughout North Africa and the Middle East, it will only take the return of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia as popular, safe tourist destinations for the numbers currently attracted here to dwindle. When those countries emerge from their difficulties – which in due time they will – Malta may well feel the backlash.

All the more reason, therefore, why focusing on improving the quality of the product while we still have a geo-political edge is of paramount importance. However, to do so requires more than just the Minister for Tourism or the president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association to mouth platitudes and express good intentions about it.

It requires a coordinated plan of action involving all the key stakeholders: the tourism authority and the hotel and restaurants business of course. But also virtually every major department of government: tourism, home affairs (for the police), the local councils, environment, rural affairs, finance, transport and infrastructure obviously, the planning authority, culture and sustainable development. And of course Gozo, which is affected by all of these.

My impression is that real, committed coordination does not currently happen. Government departments tend to act like warring tribes only concerned about guarding their own patch. Tourism in Malta is everybody’s patch.

Let me illustrate the above by giving one small example. Spinola Bay is one of the prettiest tourist areas in Malta. The restaurants that ring it are some of the best and command beautiful views of the bay. Some set the gold standard and have been there from the very start of Malta’s efforts at expansion into the quality tourism field, and have achieved it.

Spinola Bay is most decidedly not Paceville, though it lies close to it. But it appears that Paceville, with its tatty bars, loud music and rowdy revellers is in danger of encroaching on Spinola Bay. There have even been reports of people staying at the Hilton Hotel being reluctant to go out to restaurants at Spinola Bay after 10 at night because they are put off by rowdyism and young merrymakers blocking the stairs to the restaurants around the waterfront.

If this were to persist, Spinola Bay’s well deserved reputation as a quality restaurant destination would be seriously jeopardised. There is a need for coordinated action to be taken by the tourist authority, the police and the local council to prevent this beautiful setting from going the same way as Paceville.

There are many similar examples to Spinola Bay where the rare quality products Malta can offer are under threat. Once this happens, where then is the boast and ambition of a quality product for Malta?

Let me be clear. Malta has made huge strides in improving its tourism product, in the last few years especially, in the standard of most hotels and restaurants (with some notable exceptions – for example, I heard a horror story about a hotel in Birżebbuġa). But there are still far too many areas where we lag behind. For a sector which we rightly regard as one of the mainstays of our economy – an industry which has been painstakingly built up over a period of half a century – there are still far too many aspects that need improving.

While we cannot do much about our overcrowded beaches, we can certainly do something about their cleanliness and the appearance and infrastructure of the country.

In a highly competitive industry – I was in Dubrovnik a few months ago and saw what is on offer there – Malta must considerably sharpen up its product at every level if it is to continue attracting tourists in the numbers and of the quality it seeks.