In his letter (August 2) Paul Spiteri seems to have totally overlooked the real point behind my correspondence, tourism. Yes, I do think "us Maltese" should "take as a model Florida" in the case of this sector. I am in no way implying that we should build "artificial" and "gigantic structures", as he puts it, nor do we have a strong enough economy to do so. The major tourist magnets are the simplest and most basic of things, like service with a smile and not ripping tourists off. Mr Spiteri must definitely visit Florida someday to gain insight into what I am trying to imply.

However, Mr Spiteri would rather "alarm" us with Florida crime; so here are some figures I have obtained from the NSO and the Florida Statistical Analysis Centre of the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement), which he might find interesting.

First we must take into consideration Malta's population of about 450,000 and Florida's population of 17,071,508. The crime rate there has been dropping since 1992, with a drop of 4.3 per cent in 2003 over 2002. The total crime rate is of 5,164.2 cases per 100,000 population, with a total of 881,615 reported crimes. Setting aside the factual total amount of reported crimes in Malta in the year 2000, a total of 13,930 cases were introduced into the Criminal Court during that same year and these local figures have been steadily increasing over the years.

Now, taking the final "per quota" figures, readers with a minimal sense of mathematics would easily find out that the crime rate in our country exceeds that of the state of Florida.

With regard to both countries' "illegal immigrants" problems, I am sure it is far easier for them to gain access to our shores and work here than to do the same in the US. Mr Spiteri would perhaps like to have a go at trying to work or live there illegally someday! I'm sure it would be a hard or near-to-impossible thing to do bearing in mind the US immigration policies!

This was just to show readers that I "have looked at statistics" and "seen for myself", as Mr Spiteri neatly put it.

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