In my article last week I provided a few examples of what is being done in several of Malta’s neighbouring cities to reduce the numbers of incoming tourists and to respect the interests of the local inhabitants.

The silent cry, as in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, of local citizens in our most visited tourist areas remains unheard or even worse, ignored.The silent cry, as in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, of local citizens in our most visited tourist areas remains unheard or even worse, ignored.

Is Malta doing anything of the same?

It is not.

Malta and its politicians seem to wallow in self-praise that marks every increase in the volume of incoming visitors, in the size of ships entering harbour and in the number of airport travellers, both inward and outward, seeing all this as a sign of successful policy.

The silent cry, as in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, of local citizens in our most visited tourist areas – Valletta, Mdina, Sliema, St Julian’s, Buġibba, St Paul’s Bay, Vittoriosa, Blue Lagoon – remains unheard or even worse, ignored.

Many an enlightened hotel owner has proposed moving Malta away from the mass cheap tourism that pays the hotels anything from €25 to €50 a night for a room, an airline €15 to €75 to fly to Malta and a Mediterranean cruise company €450 for an airless inside cabin. These hotel owners would rather have half the number of tourists we receive right now but have them pay three or four times as much for each of these services.

Wealthier tourists would only come if Malta were to be made an exclusive site with very high entrance fees. This would be a relief for local residents.

Such a move would help increase the wages for employees in five-star hotels and would eliminate the messy cheap restaurants, knick-knack shops and crowded historic sites. It would automatically do away with the cheaper fast food outlets and bad coffee shops, since a better-quality tourist quickly sees through the lack of quality and immediately votes with his feet and wallet.

To achieve another category of destination, a lot needs to be done on our infrastructure, reputation, quality of hotels and the service they offer. Cleanliness and well-kept public places are a must. As is a numerus clausus for incoming tourists.

Beyond a certain quota, a fee that progressively increases with the number willing to enter would be introduced at the airport, ferry station, entrance to monuments and cities like Mdina, Valletta, Vittoriosa, Senglea and Victoria, as well as Dwejra, Blue Lagoon and so on.

Liners carrying more than 250 passengers should be banned from Valletta harbour. Larger liners could anchor offshore and ferry passengers in after paying a fine for being so big, as an entrance fee to Malta. This would deter the low paying and damaging visits and replace them with smaller, more exclusive liners carrying wealthier tourists.

These liners should also be obliged to utilise clean fuel and install filters that should be operational as soon as they enter Maltese territorial waters.

Such a change could happen – if all parties and local population demand it – over a 15-20 year period. During this time the Maltese language should be introduced as an obligatory condition for all personnel who deal with the public, whether in a bank, a ticket office, a restaurant, hotel, bus or taxi. Spot checks would make sure this measure is being adhered to.

Clothing rules should be imposed, such as disallowing bathing suits or shirtless persons in public places, on buses and in restaurants.

500,000 tourists spread out over the entire year, paying 10 times as much as the 2.5 million tourists we have today, would be a super result

Wardens should be empowered to impose fines on the spot.

All construction sites need to be obliged to clean up and a condition included in the building permit that public spaces outside the site must be beautified. 

There is so much that we could do to make Malta liveable for the Maltese and pleasant for the visitors. To make Malta economically sustainable in a constant upward spiral of salaries and restaurant and hotel prices on one side, and quality, beauty and serenity on the other.

It is possible to have such a unique situation. St Barths in the Caribbean, Costa Smeralda in Sardinia, Punta Ala in Italy, Lech in the Alps and Hydra in Greece are a few of the locations that have succeeded. They have put price and a cap on numbers as obstacles. As a result, the salaries of employees there are higher and profits for operators too.

We do not want to continue being the Malta of today… like Tenerife, Majorca, Mont San Michel, Amsterdam or Mikonos. If we do not change direction we will become the cesspit tourist spot of the Mediterranean.

If only we could follow some of the ideas being put into place in the more advanced tourist destinations. If only we could take a giant leap forward and make Malta unique by forcing numbers down, pushing prices and quality up, saving the unique Maltese way of life in village and town cores, while drastically improving the infrastructure, cleanliness, air pollution and skyline – so that we may attract only the best.

I would say that 500,000 tourists spread out over the entire year, paying 10 times as much as the 2.5 million tourists we have today, would be a super result.

Will this change the course of the river of our economy? It is possible that Bob Dylan’s hope, reflected in his lyric – “When will they ever learn?” – may come true. They will learn one day. Yes, reducing tourist numbers and increasing revenue from those who do come may be one part of the change.

So many other changes need to be implemented simultaneously that the task seems Herculean. Cars, buses, vans and trucks need to become 100 per cent electrified by 2025, all traffic violations such as speeding, zigzagging, double parking, tailgating or using mobiles at the wheel must be fined on the spot, a moratorium imposed on all high-rise buildings, world revenues taxed albeit at a very low rate, all residents – whether citizens of Malta, holders of new Maltese passports or retirees, whether owners or employees of locally registered companies – be made subject to VAT collec-tion on all transactions. And money laundering must be forcefully attacked.

The list can go on and on, yet it is doable. It is a vision other than the one – or the lack of one – that we appear to be following.

Malta needs a vision of what it wants to look like in 2030 or 2050. If we do not start now we never will. Even though the times, they are a changing. 

John Vassallo is a former senior counsel and director for EU Affairs at General Electric, a former vice president, EU Affairs, associate general counsel, Microsoft, and a former Ambassador of Malta to the EU.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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