Ice-skating rink to close down

The Eden Ice Arena - the only ice rink in the Mediterranean - which opened less than two years ago will close its doors to the public at the end of next month.

Ian DeCesare, managing director of the Eden Leisure Group, said yesterday that regrettably they had reached a point where they had to decide to close down the ice rink as it had not been proved financially viable.

"The bad news is that we are closing down the ice skating rink. The good news is that the 2,000 square metre hall will be used for a totally different purpose which we believe will be profitable for the Eden Group in general."

After the closure of the ice rink, the group will dress it up into a proper public place. It will be used as a multi purpose hall for small trade fairs and exhibitions - like jewelry or fashion fairs - foreign and local conferences, large dining activities and parties.

"We intend to get it ready by November. We were already receiving a lot of requests to use the hall for particular ad hoc activities and this is now going to be more possible. The hall has a very high ceiling and this makes the hall very attractive," Mr DeCesare said.

Mr DeCesare readily admitted it was a very tough decision to close down the ice rink which, incidentally, had cost Lm1.5 million to build.

"I was really sad when I was told that a 12-year-old girl started crying her eyes out when she was told the ice rink was about to close down.

"Probably there will not be another ice rink on the island. It was an experiment and it is a pity that it was not taken up by the general public. In business you take risks and they do not always work. We had gone through this before with the Eden Palladium some 10 years back. It's never easy to say that something did not work."

Mr DeCesare said the group was now trying to sell the equipment, though he doubts he will find the right buyer in Malta.

Asked why he believed the ice skating rink did not prove successful with the public, Mr DeCesare said: "First of all there is no ice skating culture in Malta. So you have the entire population who is unable to skate. In reality you need lessons. You also need to go five or six times and make a fool of yourself before you start enjoying it and not many people were prepared to invest time and money to get to know the sport.

"It is a sad situation because apart from investing a lot of money, which rendered no yield, we have a substantial number of young people who are now really into skating, including ice hockey, and they will now have nowhere to skate. That breaks my heart. It is such a shame but the market has proved too small."

Mr DeCesare said that in many countries ice skating rinks had been opened by local governments.

"If we had the stamina to keep it going, this project would have worked in 10 to 20 years time because the young generation would have grown in a culture where ice skating exists and is possible to practise."

The second reason for closing down the ice rink, Mr DeCesare added, was connected to the fact that overheads had proved enormous. "We are spending Lm200 daily in utility costs, including fuel and electricity bills. Imagine how many patrons you need to pay your electricity costs!"

Mr DeCesare also believes that one of the most painful experiences in the short life of the ice-skating rink was a news story which had appeared in The Times a few months after the launch of the project.

The story was about people who got injured as they were ice skating: "That story killed the business. We believe we may have been able to keep going had that article not appeared. That article had caused too much alarm."

But was the article accurate?

"It was accurate but you can portray the truth anyway you like. What I mean by that is not that one manipulates the truth but if you say that 70 people were injured it sounds like a tremendous amount. But if you ratio that against 18,000 people who came in during the first couple of months it was nothing. After the article there were all sorts of rumours doing the rounds including that some people had their toes and fingers cut off. This was never the case.

"In reality people who do practise any kind of sport sometimes do get injured. This applies to all sort of sport including cycling, skiing, roller skating and football."

Mr DeCesare said that following the publication of that news story parents suddenly got scared. "As a result we failed to crack the market of schools. From that day onwards the business at the ice rink was never the same."

On the performance of the group in general, Mr DeCesare said both the new five-star InterContinental Hotel and the other activities of the group were doing very well.

"We had a good spring and early summer so far as the hotel is concerned and the rest of our activities are 11 per cent up since the beginning of the year. We are very satisfied."

As to whether they were planning any other new ventures, Mr DeCesare replied with a smile: "We need a couple of years to consolidate our position and focus on running the business because, in reality, over the past three years my brother Kevin and myself have been 100 per cent focusing on the development of the InterContinental, which is the largest five star hotel on the island."