A cap needs to be placed on the number of tourists visiting Mdina, a heritage and culture tourism expert has warned.
“I know I am going to get a backlash for this proposal, but we need to make sure that the craze of tourism does not ruin what tourists come to visit in the first place,” inisisted George Cassar, an associate professor at the Institute for Tourism, Travel and Culture.
Mdina had been overrun by tourists, and the situation only seemed to be getting worse, he said. The point would be reached where tourists in Malta’s ancient capital would no longer be able to look at the heritage surrounding them, since “they would bump into other people constantly”.
Prof. Cassar also warned that host communities could become hostile when faced with such rampant mass tourism.
“Mdina has reached a critical point. We are going to lose its heritage and lose cultural assets that are valuable to the Maltese community,” Prof. Cassar told The Sunday Times of Malta.
READ: Hoteliers warn Malta is reaching its tourism peak
Calling for an immediate cap on the number of tourists visiting the city, he conceded that it was difficult to establish that number, since no carrying capacity exercise had ever been carried out.
In the race for more foreigners to visit the country, we risk selling our souls and giving up our heritage
This exercise could be done using a variety of specialised agencies tasked with determining the social and environmental pressures being placed on the city.
Prof. Cassar proposed that once the carrying capacity was determined, a management structure would be created, through which a special government body, in touch with tour companies, would be able to set restrictions on the numbers.
“Obviously there would need to be leeway for those tourists who are alone or visiting for a short time,” Prof. Cassar explained.
“We need to rationalise tourism, and we can only do that by understanding what is going on and the effect tourists are having on the country.”
Mdina has been on the tentative list of Unesco world heritage sites for years but it will probably never make it on the definitive list, he cautioned. Drastic measures were needed to safeguard Mdina’s heritage in the face of the large volume of tourists, he insisted. “We speak of how much money they bring in, but no one knows how much we are forking out when they come here,” Prof. Cassar said.
“It is hard to say how much money is being given out, because no one has studied the impact of tourists.”
In the race for more foreigners to visit the country, we risked “selling our souls” and giving up our heritage. “It is time to take the bull by the horns.”
Instead of guiding tourists to see what Malta had to offer, we saw what tourists liked and adapted Malta to be that way, he lamented.
Warnings on overtourism have increased in the past couple of months, with hoteliers calling for a study to establish the maximum number that Malta can cope with.
The president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, Tony Zahra, said the time was ripe to start focusing on sustainability and “responsible tourism” rather than numbers.
All the necessary precautions need to be taken to avoid killing the goose that lays the golden egg, Mr Zahra said.