Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco told Parliament yesterday that 2010 saw a 21 per cent increase in tourist expenditure of €162 million more than what tourists spent for the first nine months of 2009.
Speaking during the Budget debate, Dr de Marco gave a wide-ranging review of the tourist sector, saying the government will continue to invest in this industry.
This year saw an increase of 33 per cent of scheduled routes to Malta despite the international crisis. Combined with this increase, the MTA had also heavily invested in marketing and advertising campaigns to ensure an increase in load factors.
Dr de Marco stated that one can no longer say that Malta received the overspill of tourists from other countries and that in 2010 there was an increase of 117,000 tourists over last year even though 15,000 were lost due to the ash cloud incident.
He defended the shortfall experienced from the German market indicating that at the same time there was an increase of the nights spent in Malta by German tourists in the region of 9,000 nights. This must also be considered in the light of the increase of tourists from other markets, such as an increase of 8,700 tourists from France, 18,000 from Scandinavia and 17,000 from the United Kingdom. In 2010 the number of nights spent by tourists in Malta was increased by 12 per cent over last year’s figures.
Dr de Marco noted that even when one considers 2008 as having been a record year, increases were still registered in 2010 despite the economic crisis.
Hotels were also faring better and the international statistics on the accommodation benchmark, for which information is provided by hotels, indicates that Malta had the second largest increase from all 27 European countries in the average daily room rate, as well as tourist spending on other recreational activities. The latter increase is indicated as amounting to about €78 million.
Increasing employment in this sector is important to the government, Dr de Marco said, and between June 2010 and July 2010 there was an increase of 319 new full time jobs and 834 new part-time jobs in the tourism industry.
Referring to opposition comparisons between Malta and Cyprus, he said that from all Mediterranean destinations Malta had experienced the highest increase in tourism, whereby Malta’s increase stood at 13 per cent as opposed to the 0.4 per cent increase experienced by Cyprus.
Investment to strengthen the tourist industry was being made by all government sectors, the private sector and also the MTA. The latter had over the year played an important role in ensuring better coastal services and bay management, increasing the number of bays having a blue flag status, bay facilities and also also lifeguards on site. MTA’s effort in this regard is ongoing, he said and with bettering beach facilities in various areas, an increase in the influx of popular bays will be seen.
He mentioned in particular the investment carried out at Wied iż-Żurrieq in relation to mooring facilities for the boat operators in the area and commented that investment for tourism was also being financed through projects to develop rural tourism.
Human resources in the tourism sector were being strengthened through an EU funded €3.6 million training project which was being provided to managers and supervisors and aspirers to such posts. Local councils were also being assisted to carry out embellishment works in their localities. A vast number of projects were submitted for this funding and selection is ongoing.
Dr de Marco indicated that about 150 private projects were co-financed aiding the development of touristic services in Malta. The Budget vote for Gozo was not limited to half a million but was in fact added by €0.5 million which was voted as additional purposely for advertising for Gozo.
The cruise liners market has also increased for Gozo, yet this is an important market on the whole and has indicated the arrival of 360,000 passengers. An important development in this sector is the formation of packages which start and end in Malta as this, he said will necessitate that passengers travel to Malta to embark on the cruise liner.
Other speakers in yesterday’s debate were Censu Galea, Franco Debono and Jesmond Mugliett (PN) and Joe Debono Grech, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, Alfred Sant and Roderick Galdes (PL).
The votes were consequently approved.