The CEO of the Malta Tourism Authority, Josef Formosa Gauci, said today that in these challenging times for tourism, all tourism stakeholders needed to remain focused on three areas: accessibility, marketing and product development.

Speaking at a conference with the theme 'Don’t let the credit crunch bite', Mr Formosa Gauci said the current challenges could be overcome if the stakeholders worked together.

He pointed out that Malta’s most important source markets, such as the UK and Germany, were in recession.

People still wanted to travel, but their plans were being hindered by uncertainty. In the UK,operators were taking bookings for the summer with money-back guarantees should the potential travellers be made redundant before their holiday.

Airlines had gone through a turbulent period and reviewed their cost base, dropping routes which were longer than two hours away. A drop of 14 percent in seat capacity over the winter had been worrying for Malta and the MTA had acted quickly to address this situation for the summer.

Furthermore, Sterling had lost 30 percent of its value, meaning that holidays in Malta could be 30% more expensive for Britons.

All these were major challenges, Mr Formosa Gauci said, but Malta had the tools to weather the storm and to be as proactive as possible.

The conference has been organised by the Tourism Studies Association.