In his speech to the Association of British Travel Agents Convention, the Prime Minister told us that the authorities were constantly coming up with new initiatives to sustain tourism in Malta and Gozo, which is good news for all the stakeholders. However, the one thing that is expected within any holiday resort – and Malta seems to be unable to combat – is the poor standard of cleanliness in our streets and public areas. It is amply clear that while other resorts have managed to address this problem, we have clearly failed.

Having the opportunity to visit similar destinations over the past number of years, I have been able to look at how other countries manage to keep their resorts spotless and the solution in other countries is much simpler than one thinks. It is a private/public partnership and I do not mean one of those expensive partnerships where the government has to shell out millions of euros to fund a cleaning campaign. The partnership I mean is much simpler than that, and hardly costs anything. The shop owners should have some pride and shoulder the responsibility to clean the area immediately outside their shops and under the pavement curb as happens in other destinations (although a very small number already do) as well as make it a bylaw that every licensed shop owner must place and service a rubbish bin outside each and every outlet. After all most of the rubbish on our streets is accumulated from their sales.

The shopkeepers in Malta must realise that they are also in a very lucky position, that unlike similar businesses abroad they do not have to pay thousands of euros in council service rates for their establishments, so one would expect that they should not find it a problem to contribute and help keep the resort that they earn their living from clean.

The idea that the local council is expected to be totally responsible for the cleanliness of any area is simply not on and if we do have the slightest ambition to ever see our resorts as tidy as those in other countries, we have to stop pointing fingers and stand up to be counted. The councils have on their part to ensure that the standard of rubbish collections is improved and the collections in the commercial hubs are done in the low sales periods and with certainly more efficiency and consistency of service than being offered at present.