I am glad, at least, that my recent article View Of A Tour (April 15) has caused a slight stir and got people thinking; if this is what it takes to get this country and its people moving in the right direction to create civic awareness then, at least, my articles and radio programmes have not fallen on deaf years!
By no means was I being critical or negative about the work carried out by our front line "ambassadors of heritage and culture", our guides, nor was I trying to ignore the difficulties faced by coach drivers in transporting visitors between sites. I was simply attempting to get us to "think outside the box", to look at other ways of doing things, to create other attractions, services and products (as I do know the Malta Union of Tourist Guides has, in fact, started to do recently).
We need to look at tourism as one socio-economic activity and not a disjointed group of separate ideas, strategies and agendas. In my last article I said that there will always be a need to upgrade our infrastructure. This is a fact but sometimes we tend to overreact instead of acting responsibly, informing the right authorities and following up (this is a function we tend to overlook at times).
I can understand that it is very frustrating to see certain behaviour, to experience a negative attitude and to have to point out decaying and ill-maintained buildings or historical sites. I can understand this because I feel the same frustration but, on the other hand, I have also noted an improvement in certain respects when it comes to heritage and sites. (One must appreciate the work, for example, undertaken by the restoration unit within the Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure and that carried out by Heritage Malta, to name a couple.)
Unfortunately, I have not seen such a marked improvement in our own attitude to civic pride and hospitality awareness as a nation - we still can see the illegal dumping, the rowdy and ill-tempered people in the public and private sector who, unfortunately, give a bad name to us all!
Having a myopic view of tours would imply that I am to accept that there is no room for more improvement, there is no opportunity to create new attractions, to introduce new places to visit and itineraries to include. In fact, I believe we can do all this if we understand that first we need to build that sense of civic awareness I spoke of earlier. Sixty years ago, when tourism was still the pastime of a few service personnel and their families, we had a broader itinerary programme... today, that programme has been recycled for the past 40 years!
Having pride in ourselves and our islands should certainly be a necessary prerequisite for all those entering the tourism industry - as an employee and even as an investor. If we continue to treat this industry as purely a government entity then we can never claim ownership of the benefits and fresh opportunities it can bring. Neither can we ever dream of re-branding Malta and Gozo as the interesting and diverse Mediterranean island resort it really is! It will always remain: Malta, island of sunshine!
We will always remain an unknown little place, as Frank Salt very aptly pointed out (April 21), because we never really appreciated the wealth of history, culture and opportunities that lie around us - but we simply carry on looking at our limitations without taking appropriate action.