British tourists visiting Malta would continue to enjoy the "same conditions" post-Brexit, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said in Parliament today.
Dr Zammit Lewis did not elaborate on his statement or clarify what that meant.
Speaking about his ministry’s Budget vote, Dr Zammit Lewis noted that tourism in Malta last year grew by six per cent over 2014 and said cruise liner passengers were expected to increase to 700,000 this year from 460,000 in 2013.
Malta was preparing to host two million tourists next year irrespective of the EU presidency, he said adding that Malta was the country least affected by seasonality.
The minister noted that there are five new applications for hotel accommodation in Gozo.
He said connectivity would increase by 20 per cent next winter and that new niches were being tapped, not least the LGBT, sports and wedding tourism sectors. This year, he noted, 16 football teams visited Malta resulting in 9,000 bed nights. These are expected to increase to 15,000 bed nights next year.
Dr Zammit Lewis thanked the Prime Minister and Malta’s former special envoy in China, Sai Mizzi, for the signing of the MOU with Chinese authorities, adding that 2018 had been declared the EU-China year of tourism.
The Tourism Minister said the government believed that Air Malta needed a strategic partner but did not exclude local investment once the airline was financially strong.
Opposition spokesman on tourism Antoine Borg had earlier criticised the government for not having addressed the British market in the light of Brexit. Mr Borg said that the Opposition welcomed the MOU with China, but said Malta Tourism Authority officials were conscious that there was hardly any budget to market offers in the Asian market.
Both Mr Borg and Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo criticised the government for its handling of the Air Malta saga, saying that the Opposition had made proposals that made sense.
Mr Arrigo asked why the government wanted to sell Air Malta at all costs and appealed to the government to sit down with the Opposition and see how the national airline could move ahead while safeguarding employment in the process.
Mr Borg said the Opposition was open-minded when it came to the Paceville masterplan, but warned of dire consequences if the area was closed for a number of months while construction was going on.
He called on the government to offer tax incentives to curb non-licenced properties, which he estimated at 3,500 and catered for 150,000 tourists. He also called on the government to eliminate the 50c tax on each tourist and VAT.
Nationalist MP Kristy Debono referred to the British tourism market post-Brexit and warned that coupled with the fall in the value of Sterling, there could be companies which would face serious financial problems.
Dr Debono said the move of the Institute for Tourism Studies to Smart City was not welcomed by many, not least by the students who worked in Sliema, St Julian’s, St Paul’s Bay and Buġibba.
Mr Claudio Grech said that the time had come to look more at tourism’s added value, rather than just arrival figures in view of the country’s restricted space.