In recent years, European tourism has boomed to unprecedented levels, spurring anti-tourism sentiments from locals in popular destinations. These destinations, including Malta, are contending with a surge in tourism that is beginning to be too big to bear – driving up prices, polluting cities, damaging historical sites, straining the infrastructure and angering the locals.
Many destinations are beginning to act to address this problem. Lisbon and Amsterdam have doubled their tourist tax, and Italy is considering increasing it to €25 per night. Barcelona’s mayor has announced a plan to ban all Airbnb-style apartment rentals to tourists by 2028.
So far, Malta’s tourism policymakers have not defined any measures to deal with overtourism that is disrupting the lives of many locals.
Speaking to Times of Malta on the Malta Tourism Authority’s 25th anniversary, deputy CEO Leslie Vella said that “Malta can longer keep going in the direction like there is no tomorrow”, adding that the island is approaching the maximum number of tourists it can comfortably accommodate.
Undoubtedly, Vella’s analysis passes the test of common sense. However, for the MTA’s articulation of its concern to be treated as much more than a platitude, people expect the authority to delve deeper into the overtourism problem. They want to hear what the MTA solutions look like and whether it will propose concrete solutions similar to those applied by other popular destinations.
Vella resorted to an understatement when he likened overtourism to needing “a trim rather than a drastic haircut”.
Hopefully, he is not underestimating the industry’s challenges due to decades of over-reliance on mass tourism in a country that is already facing substantial overpopulation problems.
Overtourism is now eroding the cultural soul that draws visitors to popular destinations in the first place
Local tourism policymakers have for decades been searching for the holy grail that will make the industry restructuring as painless as possible.
He argues that the MTA is exploring several strategies to achieve a more sustainable balance in tourism. He particularly mentioned targeting long-haul markets like the United States and Australia. This sounds like old strategies being resurrected despite their failure to bring about the necessary change.
In reality, it is not easy to change the tourism make-up, especially after years of promoting our island as a sun-and-sea destination. In recent years we have gone down a slippery path, morphing into a party island akin to Ibiza (with no rules). We keep pumping big money towards marketing campaigns to lure tourists towards big party events.
Our island is now packed with bars and clubs pumping loud music from day till night, and these, of course, are of course a magnet for young people from all over Europe. That enough is putting off quality tourists from visiting the island.
The authorities must start by taking up the recommendation of the Malta Chamber to introduce a moratorium on new hotel accommodation to limit the oversupply of beds available for visitors’ short stays.
What Vella described as “the curse of success” was driven by factors largely beyond the local policymakers’ strategies. The emergence of low-cost travel and private rented accommodation, an emerging global middle class and the digitalisation of the industry have energised tourism in most countries.
Ironically, overtourism is now eroding the cultural soul that draws visitors to popular destinations in the first place. While tourism undoubtedly benefits the country’s economy, it also comes with costs for infrastructure and other conservation maintenance.
The tourism industry has suffered from strategy inertia for too long as its success has been measured by counting the number of visitors.
It is time for the MTA to define what needs to be done without sugarcoating the hard work required to transform the industry.