Tourist arrivals in Malta next year are expected to reach the landmark two million mark, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said this morning.
Addressing representatives of hotels and restaurants from across Europe who have convened to Malta for the Hotrec general assembly, he noted that arrivals had been on the rise since 2010.
"Next year we are expecting almost five times our population," the minister said.
He noted that during the recent European Tourism Forum, organised by the Slovak EU Presidency two weeks ago, different methods with which the tourism sector within Europe could be made more sustainable were discussed.
This process would served to face the various challenges emerging from three distinct factors affecting the industry - the collaborative economy, taxation and competitiveness, and digitisation, he said.
Regarding Malta's forthcoming EU presidency, Dr Zammit Lewis noted that this would probably be the biggest administrative and diplomatic challenge for Malta since its EU accession in 2004.
“As an EU state where tourism is clearly our bread and butter we will ensure that tourism features within the agenda of the Maltese presidency and, in this regard, our priorities are fully in sync with those of the European Commission.
"We will be looking at ways to strengthen European tourism by encouraging discussions for common action plans on how to maintain and boost the EU’s market share through the improvement of the overall tourism product and more effective promotion and marketing of our offer.”
The minister pointed out that developments dominating the tourism agenda within Europe and beyond included the sharing economy, digitisation, connectivity, seasonality, sustainability and investment in human capital.
All would feature in a high-level tourism conference to be held during Malta's presidency next year, he said.
Dr Zammit Lewis urged European destinations to not regard each other as competitors but collaborate to achieve an even larger market share of international tourism.
The two-day conference, being held at the Hilton, was also addressed by Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella, a former tourism minister.
Touching on the issue of seasonality he said Malta was successfully addressing this trend, describing an 88 per cent hotel occupancy rate for October as "fantastic".