Seventy-two travel bloggers from 14 countries will be visiting Malta and Gozo to explore its sights and write about their experiences.

The initiative is called Blog Island Malta and will begin next week as the first group stays at the beautifully restored boutique hotel Palazzo Prince D’Orange in Valletta’s St Paul’s Street.

The second group will be based in Gozo in September.

The project is being coordinated by the Malta Tourism Authority in collaboration with the Tourism Ministry.

Authority CEO Josef Formosa Gauci emphasised the importance of targeting social media as a form of advertising.

Last year, around 30 bloggers stayed in Malta for three days and followed a programme drawn up by the tourism authority.

This time round, they will be free to roam around and follow up what interests them the most.

They will be chosen from iambassador – a network of travel bloggers – and stay for five days.

Melvin Boecher, the agency’s chief operating officer, explained that travel blogging worked best when the writers were given the freedom to do what they wanted.

“They travel around the world and want to share their experiences and it’s important to trust them to do the stuff they like to do,” he said.

Within 24 hours of the call for bloggers for the Maltese Islands, the agency had received 60 applications and this went up to more than 500, he said.

Speaking at his first press conference just hours after being sworn in, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis welcomed the recent tourism figures, saying the increase was positive.

“It is important to shift the focus on quality tourism,” he said.