Free flights to Malta might be one of the ways to kick start the tourism industry from the collapse caused by COVID-19, the president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association suggested.
Tony Zahra floated the idea during a webinar organised by Horeca Malta which focused on the prospects the tourism industry is facing next winter.
In his analysis, Zahra cautioned that it was difficult to forecast when the industry will be able to recover completely as this depended on when a vaccine is available. He said tourism will only recover two to three years after that.
Zahra said government measures such as the wage supplement and the €100 voucher scheme had been crucial to keep the accommodation industry afloat but warned these cannot be extended indefinitely. The long-term solution is to generate turnover by arrivals, he added.
“Ultimately, the question is how are we going to get people on a plane to travel to Malta,” Zahra remarked when asked for his views on the way forward.
“One of the possible solutions could be to allocate the money voted for the vouchers scheme to subsidise flights to Malta,” he added.
Zahra also emphasised the need to keep the number of new COVID-19 cases as low as possible, as promoting Malta as a safe destination was crucial.
Tour operators suffered huge losses
Iain Tonna, President of the Federated Association of Travel and Tourism Agents said the outlook for the coming months is bleak.
The faint prospects of a slow recovery in autumn and spring had been dealt a severe blow by the second wave, he said.
Tonna remarked that, this year, the volume of business registered by members is 10 to 15% of that in 2019. On the bright side, travellers seemed to more keen to travel with a tour operator as they felt safer, he said.
Hotel owners need to rework their operational model
The webinar also tackled the economic impact the outbreak is having on tourism operators. Raphael Aloisio, from Deloitte, warned that unless hoteliers changed their business models, there could be serious trouble brewing in the next six months.
He cautioned that the key for survival is not necessarily to lower rates, but to review operational expenses to make it possible to break even with lower occupancy.
Aloisio also floated the idea of extending vouchers to tourists or temporarily closing down some hotels until the industry started to recover.
He laid emphasis on the need for a clear long-term strategy but noted that Malta had the potential to recover before its competitors due to its small size.