Major tourism sources doing well

Tourism Minister Michael Refalo told parliament yesterday that Malta's four major tourism source markets were doing relatively well given the international situation.

Tourism performance over the summer was not too bad at about five per cent below last year's and equivalent to the situation in 1996-98, he said.

The losses, he said, were mostly in arrivals from North Africa, the Middle East, where Air Malta was no longer operating, Switzerland, following the collapse of Swiss Air and Scandinavia except for Denmark.

Arrivals from the UK and France were at last year's level, arrivals from Italy were the highest ever, and arrivals from Germany increased in September after many months in decline.

Dr Refalo pointed out that this performance was achieved even though air capacity to Malta was reduced by 12 per cent in the wake of the September 11 events.

Although Malta's performance was below last year's, Malta was doing better than competing Mediterranean destinations which also depended on air travel for their tourism.

The minister was replying to parliamentary questions by Nationalist MP Dolores Cristina.

When replying to questions by Mr Leo Brincat (MLP) on earnings from tourism, Dr Refalo said successive tourism ministers had wrangled with the problem of how to estimate such earnings. Indeed, should the opposition be interested, he would invite it for a meeting with the Central Bank, Air Malta and other interested bodies with a view to discussing the formula on the basis of which the earnings and per capita spending by tourists were calculated.

Asked about conference and incentive travel, Dr Refalo said five-star hotels were reporting a good average room rate compared to two years ago (comparisons cannot be made with last year following the decline after September 11.) Four-star hotels were starting to recover, the problem being that although the number of inquiries was high, bookings were being made relatively late.

Dr Refalo pointed out that Malta was now benefiting from the 75 per cent reductions in the UK departure tax given to countries which were about to join the EU, thus making holidays to Malta more competitive.