The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association is planning a Diwali festival next autumn, hoping to attract the Indian community living in Europe – in particular the UK.
“There are a million Indians living in London alone,” MHRA president Paul Bugeja said.
“We get 60,000 visitors in winter, compared with 220,000 in summer. If we double the arrivals in winter, we could reach the two million mark,” he said. “The way to do that is by having specific calendar events.”
Malta has already put itself on the winter map with events like the Rolex Middle Sea Race and the Vodafone Malta Marathon. But there are plenty of things coming up which could also put Malta on the map, from the Junior Eurovision to CHOGM, the EU Presidency in 2017 and Valletta as the Capital City of Culture in 2018.
Diwali is just one of the concrete ideas that the MHRA is putting forward in an attempt to keep the upturn in arrivals going.
Another is to focus on the over 55s, as this isa very active market segment, especially in northern Europe. “These are people who do not travel in summer because of the heat, who do not need to travel depending on their children’s school holidays,” he said.
“Instead of pushing Paceville, we should be trying to double the number of Germans who come here. We only get 0.2 per cent of the 70 million Germans who travel every year. Why shouldn’t we be able to double that?
“After all, we have a much higher percentage of the French market.”
Strategic planning needed in tourism
The MHRA is also proposing to push the setting up the Convention Bureau, which was set in motion but stalled. The bureau would operate along the same lines as Finance Malta, with the inclusion of the Malta Tourism Authority as well as stakeholders like hotels, Air Malta and destination management companies.
However, quality is an issue. The seven lean years since the global crisis resulted in a slowdown in investment, and many hotels are clearly in need of refurbishment.
“A hotel would normally change all its soft furnishings every seven years.
“There is clearly a demand for credit to invest but banks need to change their stance. The cost of capital is too high, just as the governor of the Central Bank has been saying.”
The MHRA regularly raises issues of concern to its members, such as unlicensed operators, as well as promoting good practice like energy-saving initiatives.
More recent issues are the fact that national insurances contributions will have to rise in order to cover the government’s extra expenditure once it starts to pay for all the increased maternity leave.
We cannot focus on numbers. We need to look at hospitality – giving rather than taking – and quality
“The government is saying that the increase will be minimal, but operators, especially smaller ones, want to know how much it will be as soon as possible,” he said.
The MHRA has also commissioned a report on the fact that staff in restaurants are paid double on Sundays, but not those who work in hotels.
“This is a problem for restaurants as this is when they need most staff. Of course, the issue is sensitive, as the last thing we would want would be for the government to ask hotels to pay double rates! But before we take a position on this we need some more figures which will hopefully be provided by the report. We certainly do not want to compromise workers’ rights,” he said.
Mr Bugeja said that although there have been several action plans over the years, they were useless without a strategic plan.
“We cannot focus on the numbers. We need to look at hospitality – which I explain as giving rather than taking – and quality. We need to understand what the Malta brand is.
“In the past we have simply tried to be everything to everyone. That is not going to work!” he concluded.