The airline SAS will start operating twice weekly to Malta from Stockholm as of the end of March and an international call has been made for routes to Leeds, Newcastle and Bristol in the UK.
The announcement was made yesterday by the Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, Mario de Marco, following the allocation in the budget for 2009 of funding for new low-cost routes and higher load factors on existing flights.
This comes in the wake of announcements by IATA that by the end of the year the aviation industry worldwide would have lost over $5 billion and 35 airlines would have collapsed.
According to the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprise - GRTU, the forecast is that only four European airlines would survive by Christmas due to the recession. As many as five to six European airlines could go bankrupt between now and Christmas and, eventually, only Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways and Ryanair could survive, the GRTU has been warned.
Dr de Marco said Stockholm was an important destination in a market that had potential.
The recession in other important markets for Malta, such as the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain, was affecting the frequency of travel from these destinations, he pointed out.
Dr de Marco was speaking during a visit to the €27 million extension of Hilton Malta, saying that, by the end of the year, the private sector would have added over 600 beds, with another 600 planned for 2009.
Malta had double the European average of workers in the tourism industry and the tourist spend was close to €855 million, which compared well with the results of 2007, a record year, he said.
Given the importance of the industry for the economy, the government is investing €120 million directly into the tourism product and is increasing the funds for the Malta Tourism Authority by €3.5 million to €28.5 million.
Reacting to the budget, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association said it was encouraging its members to bolster their own individual marketing budgets to complement expenditure by the MTA and ensure that Malta gets the best possible coverage in the core markets over the coming months.
The MHRA has encouraged the MTA to conclude negotiations with major airlines to ensure that Malta takes advantage of the benefits of the new services in the shortest time, possibly by the end of the year.
It welcomed the retention of the five per cent VAT rate on accommodation, the removal of which would have been catastrophic for the industry, commenting that, unfortunately, its recommendation for VAT rates to be reduced on restaurants had not been heeded.
Regarding the €0.50 tax per bed night, the MHRA believed that, if it were imposed, it should be an eco-based contribution directed towards environmental initiatives.
Visitors would find it easier to pay such a contribution than any other form of tax, the association said.
If such an eco-contribution is eventually introduced, it should be payable on departure from the island as opposed to being loaded onto hotel bills, it said.
It would be an island-wide initiative in the same way that the benefits of the revenue from the tourism industry are for the whole island, the MHRA said.