Prime Minister Robert Abela will be revealing which restrictions will be lifted next "by Monday", Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli announced on Friday. 

In a Facebook post, the Tourism Minister said that she had informed some 1,500 participants of a webinar including the Malta Tourism Authority and the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association that "there will be tourism this summer". 

"The first engine to restart will be that of internal tourism between Malta and Gozo. By Monday, the Prime Minister will be announcing which sectors of the economy will reopen and when," Farrugia Portelli said. 

Together with the timelines, she said, the government will also be publishing a set of "clear protocols" for the industry and that will provide details on how restaurants, hotels and public beaches will be operating. 

The European Union this week unveiled its plans to restart tourism across the continent, proposing a three-strage approach to resuming holiday travel.

Travel bubble plans

The minister also announced that a bilateral mechanism with nine other countries had been initiated in order to discuss the realities of travel and to explore the possibility of so-called "safe corridors" between countries for "later on". 

In a statement on Friday evening, the government said the nine countries are Luxembourg, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Israel.

Malta banned all incoming passenger flights on March 21 as the number of coronavirus cases spiked. The airport remains closed to arrivals. 

Some non-essential shops, which were shut soon after, re-opened on May 4, with the Prime Minister saying at the time he hoped to lift more measures that impact various sectors by the end of the month. 

Cafes and restaurants remain shut until now. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

No details on how the lifting of the measures have been provided so far, with questions on the matter being met with replies that it was too early for such information to be provided since the health authorities were still monitoring the situation daily. 

On Thursday, Malta registered the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases in over a month. While insisting the virus was still in the community, Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci also cautioned against alarm, saying number could not be analysed on a day-by-day basis. 

Instead, the health authorities monitored the situation over a number of days and weeks.