The year 2009 will be a difficult one for our tourism. Despite the progress registered in some areas such as cruise passenger traffic and conference travel, Malta is still heavily reliant on the "sun and sea" British market. To maintain a competitive advantage on international markets, tourism needs to innovate consistently. Marketing presumes that the product (experience) is right. Caring for our cultural and environmental heritage is a pre-condition for sustainability and demands commitment and a change in mindset. Channelling EU money into the sector helps, but is not enough.
Our political leaders envision Malta as a centre of excellence, as becoming among the best in Europe. Big talk has its own rationale but it will achieve little unless it positively changes the way we do things. Every 1,000-mile journey starts with a single step: strategic planning. Quick fixes may bring temporary relief but their effect soon fizzles out. Our tourism has to find strength in its unique characteristics without being superficial about its limitations. Our tourism lacks the critical mass that is essential to foster specialisation, build reputation and achieve excellence. This constraint can only be overcome though greater coordination and synergy among tourism and other economic activities.
Malta's experience with English-language schools shows that the market tends to show the way. This tourism segment bloomed as a result of a number of sporadic entrepreneurial initiatives. However, it was only after the government intervened in 1996, regulating the industry, that it achieved a steady growth rate (10 per cent annually). Today, the study of English in all its specialised forms attracts more than 86,000 students from over 80 countries. This industry is now growing internationally, with one school opening subsidiaries in the UK, South Africa and the USA.
A strategy for our tertiary education is in the offing. Worldwide tertiary education has been evolving at a fast pace as societies have come to appreciate that their economic and social development is knowledge-based. Tertiary education is no longer the prerogative of a privileged few. "Thirst for knowledge" and" lifelong learning" led to an average five per cent annual growth over the last decade (Malta: 3.6 per cent). In richer societies, such as Australia and New Zealand, some 80 per cent of students make it to tertiary education. In Malta, the entry rate is 25 per cent (2005).
In many European countries including Malta, tertiary education is still considered as a "public" good and is provided free of charge or at a subsidised rate. In places such as the USA, Canada and Japan, education is mostly privately funded. The pressure on governments to reduce expenditure, at a time of greater demand for higher education, is leading many institutions to seek alternative revenue sources. Governments are having to content themselves to defining policies, indicating expected outcomes and assuring that quality standards are met.
Universities are being given greater autonomy while non-university institutions such as polytechnics, technology centres and media companies as well as private institutions have moved quickly to fill the empty space that was created. Developments in communication technologies enabled new styles of programme delivery such as distance teaching.
Attracting fee-paying foreign students has become big business worth more than $2.2 trillion and still growing at about 6.2 per cent per annum. About 600 foreign students are presently studying at our University. It is estimated that each of these students spends at least €10,000 on accommodation, food, entertainment etc. This means an injection of €6 million into the local economy.
Competition is getting more intense as countries like the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore have resorted to powerful marketing campaigns to position themselves on the market that continues to be dominated by the USA. Asia (China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and India) accounts for a significant part of global demand. Students have a preference for business studies but high growth is expected in computer sciences.
Universities are going international not just for the money. Opening their doors to overseas, students allow their faculties to reach out and compare themselves with their foreign counterparts. The EU' s Erasmus education and training programme enables 200,000 students to study and work overseas and involves more than 3,100 higher education institutions. The Erasmus programme has also inspired the establishment of the Bologna Process, which aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010. The Bologna Process is essentially intended to help member states to modernise their education systems, to bring some order to the large variety of degrees that exist so as to render European tertiary education more compatible and to make it more attractive to students from the rest of the world.
The proposed strategy for our higher education could be an important step in the long journey towards excellence. It should not only ensure convergence with our broader economic and social goals, but should serve as a launch pad for the internationalisation of our higher education. Education tourism is an opportunity that our society cannot afford to ignore.