Cruise liner operators have cancelled cruiser calls in Malta in view of the tax free shopping issue and there are indications that others did not include Malta in their Mediterranean cruises for the same reason, Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech confirmed yesterday.
Recently the Federation of Associations of Travel and Tourism Agents (Malta) said that more than 140 regular cruise liner calls to Malta, carrying an estimated 180,000 passengers, have been cancelled for this year.
The federation believes several cruise liners decided to cancel Malta as a port of call because it will lose the attraction of tax-free shopping on joining the European Union.
Under European tax protocols, cruise liners are only allowed to operate tax-free concessions if their itinerary includes a port of call outside the EU.
Dr Zammit Dimech, who was addressing a group of journalists from a number of European countries at the Hilton business centre, said Viset cruise terminal consortium has drawn up a legal study on the issue and has submitted it to the government.
The study explores amendments that could be made to Maltese law in regard to tax free shopping on board the cruise liners and also recommends what proposals the Maltese government could make to the EU once Malta became a member next May, he said.
Dr Zammit Dimech said over 180 specialists consulted worldwide in the framework of the World Tourism Organisation panel of tourism experts confirm a positive prospect for international tourism in 2004.
Dr Zammit Dimech said that whereas tourism arrivals from the UK in 2003 increased by 15,230, or 3.4 per cent, to 459,569 - the highest number of arrivals ever from the UK - there were decreases from Germany, Italy and France that offset these gains. However, while international tourism slid by 1.2 per cent, that in Malta dropped by half that, 0.6 per cent.
He said that figures received by the WTO showed that international tourism receipts to Malta increased by 2.3 per cent in 2003 compared to the previous year.
"If we compare our results with two of our major competitors in the Mediterranean we find that in 2003 Cyprus lost 4.7 per cent of its arrivals and 4.2 per cent of receipts whilst Tunisia increased its arrivals by 1.8 per cent but up to the date of the publication of the WTO results had lost 2.9 per cent of receipts."
He also referred to the cruise line operator My Travel which was going to use Malta as a home port, starting its cruises and ending them here. It had so many bookings from British and Scandinavian passengers that it will be commencing its cruises from Malta in April instead of May.
Its cruise ship carries over 1,000 passengers.