Two months to go and the current tourism year will be over. The outturn has not been bad so far, on all counts whereby it is measured. More year-to-year arrivals stayed longer and spent comparatively more money. That is not to say, though, that the fall-off of previous months was recovered, or that hoteliers in particular will be turning in bumper profits.

They will be glad that the decline has been arrested and that a recovery has began. The challenge now is to keep it going through September and October, and to accelerate it in 2010/2011, possibly with improved bed night rates and average occupancy.

It will not be easy. The tourist sector is, in considerable part, hostage to socio-economic conditions in our markets and to competitive pressures from both Mediterranean destinations like Cyprus, Greece and the North African littoral countries, and to costs in Malta.

The economies of our supply countries are in for a hammering in the coming months. The economic recession is just about over, but with recovery still weak and below the levels required to bring sighs of relief among economic operators. Nevertheless, in most of the supply countries austerity measures initiated recently are set to bite more savagely than recent experience suggests.

That holds true in particular for the United Kingdom, where the Conservative-Liberal tandem are putting in place expenditure cuts and a hike in VAT which could yet tip their economy into hard-to-recover-from negative growth. In this regard keen pricing in Malta and improved air linkages will be essential to maintain and possibly increase British arrivals, despite frank urging from UK officialdom for their citizens to holiday in Britain.

Malta is not as competitive as it used to be. Hotel rates may have gone down but the tourist spend is facing rising prices well known to those of us who live here all the year round. Hikes in tariff rates work through into supply prices, while certain service providers are far from being careful enough with the rates they charge.

This is a problem for the whole country. For hotels there are other problems. To try to boost their bed night rates they are placing more reliance on internet bookings. There remains much scope to exploit in that area, especially through linking to the airlines which fly Malta routes. But exploitation can only be gradual. Meanwhile, hoteliers are facing new challenges.

One of them is that a rising proportion of tourists are tending to view hotels as bed-and-breakfast outlets, preferring to eat out. That puts pressure on the contribution from the food-and-beverages account. Some hotels, especially the smaller and lower-starred ones do not get much contribution from that area and might be pushed eventually to stop offering lunches, as a minimum. Yet such a change cannot be made overnight. Hotels for next year are mostly booked on a half- or full-board basis.

The trend for tourists to eat out, for the adventure, greater variety and the social effect of mingling outside their hotel draws attention, in turn, to the cost of dining out. One can find reasonable places to go to, with good food and drink offered at a fair price. There are also outlets, however, which are flies in the ointment. For them tourists are not repeat customers so they can get away more easily with overcharging.

At the official level, the political administration headed by Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco and, at the direct level, by the Malta Tourism Authority guided by its experienced chairman Louis Farrugia, has breathed fresh energy into the winds of the industry. The Ministry of Finance has been showing appreciation for the sector’s needs, though no allocation can ever be enough. On the partisan front the industry is lucky that opposition spokesperson Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca does not politicise the sector out of simple caprice.

Converging positive factors, which include the contributions made by Air Malta and other airlines, among which the low-cost carriers, are essential for the industry to build on this year’s head of steam and to try to make 2010/2011 a year of recovery relative to the sector’s recent peaks.

The general government too has to do its part. There has been some improvement in our road network, but not nearly enough. It is not simply a case of waiting for old roads in dire disrepair to be rebuilt. Resurfacing a number of bad roads on the tourist trek, especially now that we have double-deckers offering sight-seeing around our islands, is essential. Not just for the tourists – for us in the first instance. But tourists count for a lot, as a proper breakdown of our Gross Domestic Product will remind us.

This year’s uptrend brings hope. Still, a lot remains to be done if Product Malta is to be such as to reposition the tourist industry on a sustainable slowly rising trend. There is no room for easing up.