The Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, Mario de Marco, in a frank speech to hoteliers this morning outlined the problems facing tourism and the actions which need to be taken for the industry to at least maintain this year’s arrivals figures for next year.
He told the annual meeting of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association that tourism to Malta this year performed better than the European average and better than most if not all direct competitors. Despite a slowdown in the last part of the year, Malta expected to end the year with overall growth of around four to five percent, a record on an already record 2007, with arrivals reaching 1.3 million.
“The situation for next year, as our main source markets enter into a deeper recession, does not appear positive. The situation is further aggravated by the airline industry cutting seat capacity,” Dr de Marco said.
As a result, he said, the UK, Malta’s most important source market, was underserved by airlines. Germany, Malta’s second most important market, was back to being served only by two legacy carriers. Italy was performing below its capacity and France was still being served solely by Air Malta.
Opening up new routes, especially in the UK, remained a line of action the authorities were working on. The government published a call last month inviting airlines to express an interest in operating to Malta from three UK regional destinations, even if it acknowledged that getting airlines to commit nowadays was 10 times more difficult than it was a couple of years ago.
“Filling available seats should in theory be cheaper and easier than starting new routes. From my discussions with members of the trade, I concluded that this solution is highly underrated,” the parliamentary secretary said.
"We need to stir up demand. I would have wished that the problem we are facing today is simply one of accessibility. It is not. It is also a problem of stirring up demand to fill those seats that we have available on those markets that have been traditionally our core markets, on those markets that although secondary are important, and on those markets that are emerging.
“I have set up a special team which meets regularly to discuss tourism trends and propose intervention measures. I will keep insisting with this group and with MTA on the need to push up load factors from existing routes. I want MTA to carry out more intensive marketing campaigns, targeting those regions with low seat factors. Filling up those seats will make up for lost seat capacity from other routes.”
He said that Air Malta would as from next summer operate all its 12 aircraft on Malta routes and it was planning to introduce new routes.
“It is in our long term interest to do whatever we can to see these routes gain strength. I have in mind, particularly, the new French routes and the increased frequencies from German airports.”
Turning to product, Dr de Marco said Malta needed to better display what it was offering.
“We as a government are aware that we need to do more and in fact, we will be spending €120 million over the next years to improve our tourism product. But on this one the buck does not stop only with me or with government. It stops with all tourism operators not to mention all citizens. We all have our part to play in improving our tourism product.”
He stressed, however, that tourists also needed to enjoy good value for money.
“It is a shared responsibility amongst us all. By this I do not mean that we have to be cheapest on the market, but we can, and certainly should offer best value for money. It is the best competitive edge that we can have over other competing destinations in these arduous times.”