Hoteliers receiving tourists stranded after Qawra Inn closed down are worried they may not get paid their dues.
It’s not their fault they’ve lost their holiday
The owner of the beleaguered Qawra Inn and Malta Bargains, Robby Borg, said he had reached an agreement through which such hotels would get paid from money he is owed by the Malta Tourism Authority.
The MTA’s CEO, Josef Formosa Gauci, confirmed the authority owed money to Mr Borg but he could not say whether there would be any left after other prioritised creditors were paid.
The general manager of one hotel owed money by Qawra Inn, who preferred to remain anonymous, said they had not yet received any payment for guests relocated from the hotel that closed down.
Asked whether they expected to get paid, he was sceptical. “Hopefully, we’ll get paid,” he sighed. “At the end of the day, a customer is a customer. It’s not their fault they’ve lost their holiday. Whether or not we’ll get paid... we can but try.”
Qawra Inn was shut down by the health and safety authorities last month due to Legionella contamination.
A number of tourists who had been transferred to the Crown Hotel following the closure were last week faced with an ultimatum letter demanding payment for their stay in the second hotel even though they had already paid through Malta Bargains when they booked their holiday.
Crown Hotel director Ronald Azzopardi said he had no choice because he could not obtain payment from Mr Borg.
Mr Borg rubbished the claim, saying the MTA had pledged to pay any outstanding dues to other hotels through money it owed him.
The MTA yesterday admitted it owed Malta Bargains “a sum” for a joint marketing venture in the UK but specified that its primary concern was to pay the British advertising agency that was owed money.
Hotels, Mr Formosa Gauci said, would be paid only if there was any money left and only once Mr Borg presented them with the relevant invoices.
“If hotels are owed money by Mr Borg, they should speak to him. We are not in the business of paying hotels,” he said.
The agreement to pay Mr Borg’s creditors directly is an odd one and Mr Formosa Gauci confirmed that it was not the MTA’s general policy to do so. “This was a one-off. Given the Qawra Inn’s closure, we wanted to ensure that advertisers that are owed money were paid,” Mr Formosa Gauci said. “I don’t want Malta to get a bad image with foreign advertising agencies.”
He conceded that the litigious history between the MTA and Qawra Inn had also contributed to his decision to insist on paying Mr Borg’s creditors directly.
The MTA had issued an enforcement order to close Qawra Inn for the poor enforcement of standards in 2009. The case was still ongoing when health and safety authorities discovered Legionella contamination at the hotel.
The Crown Hotel’s decision to charge guests it received from Qawra Inn was “a little too hasty”, Mr Formosa Gauci said. “Qawra Inn guests were sent to a number of hotels but it was only people sent to the Crown Hotel who were treated in this way.” Asked whether he felt the Crown’s demand was legal, he limited himself to saying: “Let’s just say I would have handled things differently.”
Ultimately, Mr Formosa Gauci said, it was Malta’s image that emerged as the biggest loser from this dispute between hoteliers. “Visitors don’t know who Mr Azzopardi or Mr Borg are. They’ll simply think: ‘This is the way we were treated in Malta.’”