Economists who could be in the pay of either individual hotels or even possibly any of the sector’s lobbying organisations often come up with the wrong reasons for recommending further physical or numerical growth of certain facilities in Malta.

Very often, and this could be applied to the two extra floors idea, as much as to the adding of further wings (e.g. the Selmun idea), the argument being brought up is the scale economies one. But this, especially on a national level, is only a short-term view, one that is bound to lose out when compared to long-term diseconomies realities.

Two more floors, or an extra wing, may (never assumed) imply that, for example, with the same number of workers more rooms can be serviced. But over a long term, it will also mean more and higher capital maintenance costs, more environmental (traffic, water consumption) damage, increased risk of more empty capacity in a market downturn from whatever causes and others.

While there are definite reasons why one should be happy that tourism in Malta is going through a very good period, it is prudence and wisdom which should caution our decisions. These must be of the type that recognises that the extent of the sector’s often claimed contributions to GDP is often overblown beyond reality, that the sector is notorious for its high leakages from the economy (for example via necessary imports or via the extent to which our tax authorities are really getting their dues from holiday property in Malta which is owned by foreign owners who in fact rarely, if ever, reside in it) and the extent to which other sectors, such as the airline industry, become totally dependent on it.

There is a key question which, it seems, everybody in Malta’s tourism industry continues to fight shy from facing head on: to what extent must the industry continue to be allowed to grow in a small 17- by-nine-mile island? Is it up to two, three, four, five million tourists per annum?

How much and how many? At what stage do we sensibly decide that we will intentionally start practising a smaller numbers/better quality policy that will mean ever less pressures on our environment and, indeed, a better quality experience for our visitors?