Five thousands delegates will be arriving in August to take part in the biggest conference to be held in Malta, the Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, Mario de Marco said yesterday.
To be held between August 29 and September 4, the convention is organised by Swedish cosmetics company Oriflame. The 5,000 delegates will spend seven nights here, staying in 13 five- and four-star hotels, most of which will be at full capacity.
Unsurprisingly, when speaking of such crowds, meetings that will require all present to be there will be held nowhere but the granaries, in Floriana, a common venue for mass meetings and big events.
"This is obviously good news," Dr de Marco said, adding that 35,000 bed nights in one week was very good for tourism.
He said 2009 had been a very difficult year for tourism, especially with regard to the conference and incentive segment because "companies were reluctant to be seen spending on such items in a recession and at a time when so many people were losing their job. Austerity chic has become the new buzzword".
He said the government was supporting a subsidy scheme through which a number of conferences were being organised in Malta. So far, Dr de Marco said, 26 conferences had been attracted to Malta: 10 last year, 13 this year, two in 2011 and one slated for 2012. Between them, they account for 10,300 delegates, or about 31,000 nights, making this 5,000-strong convention even more remarkable.
On Site Malta, the destination management company which brought Oriflame's annual Gold Conference to the island, had been in touch with the company for three years and had made the case for Malta during a presentation held in Barcelona in 2008.
Tjasa Avgustin, events manager for Oriflame, said Malta fit the brief very well because it was a nice country, had good weather and enough hotels to host its delegates.
"We have crazy ideas for our conferences and it is good to see people who are receptive to this," she said.
Previous editions of the conference were held in Rome, Barcelona and Greece. The company also has its "diamond" and "executive" conferences, held in exotic destinations such as Zanzibar and Mombasa. The company, which sells its products via word-of-mouth, has 3.3 million people in its ranks worldwide.
Paul Selis, director at On Site Malta, said the company was very proud of the conference, especially because the market at the moment was very competitive due to the international economic crisis. The message the company wanted to send, Mr Selis said, was that "in Malta we can".