Tourism, it goes (almost) without saying, is a major factor – if not the major factor – in this country’s satisfactorily strong economy. If the other oft-mentioned contributors, such as “financial services” and being “an internet hub”, make any significant contribution, those activities are obviously less visible to the man in the street.

The rate of tourist arrivals has been increasing every year, indeed, every three months, that I can remember in the last four decades (in fact if those figures had been accurate, there would have been even more tourists on the islands than there are now).

The question has to be, now, how many more can Malta take?

Okay… developers (naturally) want to build more, and higher, hotels – so they probably will. Many more farmhouses can be converted for letting. There are all those half-built or unbuilt potential dwellings on Gozo, and elsewhere. That might answer the question about where to put them.

But what is supposed to happen when they step outside the front door? Where do they go, and how do they get there? The roads are clogged, the buses are full. Sunbathers are lying shoulder to sweaty shoulder on sunbeds…

The answer may have been apparent some years ago when an English friend (she happens to be a millionairess who was used to staying in those 5-star 1,000-a-night seafront palaces on the Riviera), told me she was giving up on Gozo after having been an annual visitor for 14 years.

“I don’t come here to sit by the pool surrounded by people with package-holiday rucksacks,” she said.

What brought that on? Quite simply that the Maltese had switched from quality to quantity. Rather than spend a bit of money in greatly improving “the product” – its comfort and amenities for people who were willing to pay for it (and possibly thereby justifying increasing its rates) – her favourite hotel had chosen to double in size… Lower standards, lower room rates, but more punters.

And there you have it – punters, with rucksacks, rather than guests, with luggage.

If I, a mere immigrant, might be allowed to make a suggestion, it would be that Malta should start trying to put a cap on tourism at its current level – and start trying to improve its act.

I’d start at the top. With very few exceptions, Malta’s so-called five-star hotels don’t deserve that accolade. If there’s an authority that assesses the star rating on Malta (rather than leaving it to the hotels to claim for themselves), I’d guess that it’s somebody who has never been abroad – at least, not to a major city.

I drove, not long ago, to a four-star hotel in Paris. It was snowing. Outside the front were two doormen in top hats and cloaks who took my luggage from the boot and offered to park the car. Only once have I experienced that sort of service at a Maltese 5-star hotel (except it wasn’t snowing). Most of them don’t even notice when you arrive. Sometimes you go inside and find nobody at reception.

Here’s a clue: in London the Savoy, the Ritz, the Dorchester, the (Park Lane) Hilton; in Paris, George Cinq, the Crillon and Plaza Athenee; in Berlin, the Bristol Kempinski, the Adlon, the Ritz-Carlton; in Nice (where my rich friend used to stay), Negresco; and in Cannes, the Carlton… these are “five-star” hotels.

Simply walking in to these places makes you feel that you have arrived, in more senses than one.

I’d respectfully suggest that the MTA gives more thought – and closer inspection – to its ‘top’ hotels, and works down from there, rather than working up, from camping.

Malta is not, and never has been, a beach resort. Almost every country in Europe with a seafront has more and better beaches

It may not be too late to rescue Gozo which, as I have written before, used to be visited by people who went there because nobody went there. It was effectively a “secret” island in the Med. But the travellers (they didn’t consider themselves to be “tourists”) passed this secret to all their friends – who also came here… because nobody came here.

There was famously nothing to do on Gozo. These days, that is a tourist attraction in itself. What a tragedy it is, to spoil that.

And, talking of tragedies… look at Comino. The beauty of that tiny island was that it was virtually uninhabited. There were no facilities – unless you found the discreetly hidden hotel. The only people you’d meet would be like-minded folk who relished the idea of walking on an “empty” island.

It’s become cheap and nasty. Or at least, nasty, but not cheap. If you want to swim in the Blue Lagoon you need to make your way through a maze of sunbeds and then queue to get into the water.

If the excuse for this type of government permission is that there are votes in it, I’d suggest that – since only four operators are involved – there would be considerably more votes of gratitude if the sunbeds and kiosks were removed, completely.

Malta used to be so beautiful. People went to Valletta and Mdina for the privilege of being able to walk the streets that the Knights built, and see the buildings they would still recognise.

Tourists didn’t want kiss-me-quick hats or tea towels telling the story of “the Italian who went to Malta”. They may have thought about taking home some Maltese lace (even if it’s now probably machine-made, in Tunisia), or a necklace with a “Maltese” cross, and probably some honey and some sea salt.

Others went to Gozo because it was a place where they could walk, or maybe cycle, to enjoy the quiet spirit and the magnificence of the Citadel, where they could explore winding streets in the shade. Where they could sit and read (remember “books”?), or just sit and think, or just sit…

And visitors from both islands went to Comino because it was, or at least appeared to be, “an uninhabited Mediterranean island”.

And yes – of course these people used restaurants for lunch and dinner. Certainly, there were fewer places to eat, but the quality was higher than today, when anybody who can fry a sausage thinks he’s Jamie Oliver and turns his garage into a restaurant, or parks his truck on a corner and gets it licensed as a “kiosk”.

Malta is not, and never has been, a beach resort. Almost every country in Europe with a seafront has more and better beaches. So the yobs come because they’ve heard that it’s English-speaking, and that beer and fags are cheaper than at home, and they are almost immediately bored. So they get banjaxed every night and discover – as we all have – that Malta has become nothing, but Paceville.

So what am I suggesting? Not that we increase the price of booze and cigarettes, but that the MTA (which, if it has done anything, has brought us this type of tourist) looks at some destinations other than Ibiza and the Costa del Sol.

It could enquire how, say, Sicily or Sardinia attract their tourists, or even Ireland (which certainly doesn’t have the benefit of the weather, and where drink and fags are surprisingly expensive). They all, incidentally, are Ryanair destinations – so cheap flights don’t automatically equate with cheap people.

Meanwhile, Malta isn’t our Switzerland in the Mediterranean, and not even skyscrapers would make it anything like a Singapore. It’s a yobboes’ playground with a medieval background. And that, the sad truth of it, is “Brand Malta”.

Revel Barker is a semi-retired journalist, an author and a publisher and long-time resident on Gozo.