The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association insisted on Sunday that it was 'wrong and deceitful' for anyone to try and use the association or its president, Tony Zahra, as a scapegoat for the rise in COVID-19 cases.
It said its council had discussed every lobbying decision taken which it had communicated.
"Tony Zahra has the unequivocal support of the whole council of the association. It would also be pertinent to point out that Tony Zahra has no direct investment in any hotel or restaurant and thereby derives no direct benefit from the hotel and catering industry and any comment made to the contrary is incorrect and serves only to damage the reputation of Mr. Zahra underhandedly," the association said.
The statement was issued at the same time as Prime Minister Robert Abela defended Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli and insisted in a One TV interview that the tourism lobby had not 'pulled the carpet' from under the government,
"When the MHRA fights for tourism it is fighting to ensure that jobs within the industry are retained and to ensure that the economy continues to prosper to everyone’s benefit including all other businesses servicing tourism," the association said.
It said it had supported the government in its decision to lock down the island and close the airport to all incoming travel when there was a great deal of uncertainty about the real danger of COVID-19 to people’s lives.
Once there was more clarity about the virus and it was deemed by the experts, amongst which were the World Health Organisation and the European Union, that it was safe to reopen the airport it had lobbied for this to happen as fast as possible as this was the only way its members could commence operations and safeguard as many jobs as possible.
The MHRA said that it had, at all times, advocated for the proper protocols to be used across the whole industry from arrivals at the airport to procedures in their members establishments.
"At no point did the MHRA advocate for mass events to take place. The association categorically denies that it applied any sort of pressure at all to allow for mass events to take place," it insisted.
The various clusters of positive cases had in their majority resulted from local events and not from tourist-related cases thereby clearly showing that the recent spike has not been caused by the opening of the airport or by the small number of tourists visiting the island, it said.