The government is to launch a pilot project where a tourism zone manager will be appointed to coordinate work which needs to be done in the area of his remit, Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco said this afternoon. The zone manager will coordinate his activities with the government, local councils and other stakeholders.
Speaking during the announcement of the MHRA hotel survey results for the last quarter of 2008 (see separate story), Dr de Marco also announced that the government will shortly launch a scheme whereby it will subsidize hotel loans by 1 to 2% when the investment is made for refurbishment or to improve the product.
He also disclosed that a €300,000 fund had been set up to attract conference travel to Malta. Efforts in this direction had yielded the first result with a conference by the European Broadcasting Union confirmed for November.
Dr de Marco said the current economic crisis was causing problems for the tourism industry everywhere, including Malta.
Arrivals between November and January were down 13% compared to last year, and comparable to 2006 figures. Guest nights were down by 3.3 percent.
He said the current crisis was not affecting people’s desire to travel, but their means to afford it. Indeed, a shift was being seen from long haul to medium and short-haul travel.
Malta’s strategy, he said, was two-pronged- accessibility and promotion. Air Malta was now using all its aircraft on scheduled services and new routes which would be introduced by the summer by various airlines had the potential of yielding 69,000 more visitors.
The marketing team of the Malta Tourism Authority was meeting every two weeks to review the situation and the government had allocated €20.9 million for marketing, including direct marketing and joint marketing with stakeholders. A TV campaign in the UK had been well received and new campaigns were being launched in Italy, Germany and France. The MTA would also be helping hotels do their own advertising. Some 1,000 travel agents would be brought to Malta next month on familiarisation visits.
Dr de Marco pointed out that the government had also allocated €120 million of EU funds for product development, including an aquarium attraction in Qawra, a new promenade in St Julians, and restoration works.
The current situation, he said, was impacting Malta like it was impacting other countries, but it was important that Malta was able to emerge from the current cycle in a strong position.