Some years back I watched a Drew Barrymore – Adam Sandler film called Fifty First Dates. It was one of those easy viewing, light romantic comedies with Barrymore cast in the usual ditzy blonde role. She suffered from a form of amnesia where she could not remember things for a long time. She would wake up every morning and not recall what had happened the day before, which led to her having to relive the same mistakes and repeat the same learning processes every day.
When I read the news these days, I am beginning to think the country has become a giant film set populated by people who have precisely the same form of affliction as Barrymore in the mentioned film.
Time and time again, people forge ahead with exactly the same kind of projects that have been turned down in the past. Without a thought for past experiences, objections and debates, they bang on, probably in the hope that this time the outcome will be different.
Take the proposed tourism project on the Munxar promontory. It initially included accommodation, a beauty salon, restaurants, a beach club, a swimming pool and pontoons for ‘very rich people’ wanting to visit the facilities by boat. This blatant seafront tourism development proposal came under the guise of the agritourism package. It’s a misnomer, because the agriturismo concept is an absolute non-starter in the local scenario.
A real agritourism project is one where working farms diversify their income-making possibilities by accommodating guests who can experience the rural way of life. The idea is to prop up pre-existing farms by finding another source of revenue besides the sale of crops and animal husbandry.
Existing dwellings can be refurbished and city slickers can enjoy some respite from the urban rat race by spending some time in peaceful and tranquil surroundings. Children who think a chicken is something that comes in the form of a pre-fried nugget, get the opportunity to see some real farm animals.
The Munxar project as proposed is as far removed from a genuine farm experience as one can get
A genuine agritourism experience is a win-win deal all round. There is minimal disturbance or intensification of use of rural and undeveloped areas, while the beauty and use of nature and the countryside is highlighted.
Down-to-earth, back-to-nature hospitality is the main thing about it. You choose an agritourism holiday to have a simple, no-frills, relaxing time out.
If you feel you are going to panic because there are no nail parlours within a 15-kilometre radius, then an agritourism holiday is not for you. If you cannot bear to be without your branded toiletries and are going into spasms of anxiety because there is a weak Wi-Fi signal behind the pigpen, then it’s best not to venture out beyond your coffee shop comfort zone.
And if you are a ‘very rich person’ and can’t bear to ruin your designer sandals by squelching through a bit of mud, then it’s best to give up on the idea of a farm holiday.
The Munxar project as proposed does not take these very obvious factors into consideration. It is as far removed from a genuine farm experience as one can get. In effect, it is a luxury tourism development grafted on to a rural site. More to the point – it is not making use of existing and unobtrusive working farming structures but plonking down more buildings on a totally untouched site of scenic beauty.
This obsession with taking over every open space must be a uniquely Maltese characteristic. Applications for petrol stations and restaurants are proliferating and there are more kiosks than people on all the promenades around.
There’s another ‘eco-hotel project’ proposed at the nearby Kalanka Bay. One of the reasons put forward for this application was that bathers did not have any place on the beach where they could buy a bottle of water. So the logical thing to do is to build a hotel where parched bathers can slake their thirst.
Besides this horror vacui, there’s this deliberate amnesia about what was proposed in the very same spot some time ago. In 1995, an Italian developer came over, wanting to turn Munxar into the local version of Portofino. He uttered the magic word ‘five-star hotel’, coupled with the obligatory high-end residential units.
He threw in the kind offer of a chapel to sweeten the pill, but thankfully the locals weren’t having any of it. They weren’t as enthused about his offer (nowadays it would be called a ‘planning gain’).
The main objection was that the Munxar promontory was stunningly beautiful as it was, in its untouched, wild state and it should remain as is. That still holds true today. It’s a pity developers keep on forgetting it.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt