Valletta: It's a kind of magic

If Notte Bianca was an event for the family, and a time for people to converge on one of Europe's finest open-air museums, Notte Magica is yet again a clear message that culture and the arts are on the agenda, offering space to artists, as much as to the people, to come together, this time through leisure events, an essential ingredient for the enhancement of our quality of life.

The Valletta local council with the Ministry for Tourism and Culture are yet again offering another memorable event to the people. The regeneration of Valletta is not a cry in the wilderness. Much work and money is needed to improve our city, but never have we seen so much resourceful input into Valletta, which became one of the 25 capitals of Europe, and is now also in top gear to become one of Europe's main Capitals of Culture.

Valletta is proving to be one of Malta's top brands, not only for tourism purposes but also for us locals, offering a unique setting for living, leisure, culture, shopping and business activity within the embracing walls of the city.

Within one square kilometre and within walking distance from all venues, Valletta offers more than 3,000 covers in restaurants, wine bars and cafés, more than 1,000 shops, over 3,000 theatre seats at the Manoel Theatre, the Sacra Infermeria (Mediterranean Conference Centre) and the Royal Opera House site, five squares with unique baroque settings for staging top quality events, not to mention the splendid palaces and St John's Cathedral, themselves a beautiful backdrop for Malta.

Notte Magica is again an event for all; for all the family, for the performing artistes, for the people of Valletta, and, hopefully, also for the business community. Very few commercial establishments reacted to Notte Bianca. A survey carried out by the Ministry for Tourism and Culture shows that some 75,000 people responded to the event with spending exceeding Lm800,000. Rather than opening their doors, shops chose to go on "shutdown" on the day.

Notte Magica tomorrow is a day for sales, business, leisure and entertainment. It is not a time for "shutdown" or even stocktaking. My appeal goes to the public to participate. I also appeal to the business community to open for business and to offer its services to all those who come to the city and to do the real stocktaking after the event.

Valletta will see a series of events in 2007. This is a clear indication that the capital is no longer a dead city at night as some may unjustly accuse it of being because the regeneration of Valletta is truly happening on all fronts.

We, at the Valletta local council, as a stakeholder and sponsor of the event, believe in synergy as a success to any event, and it is for this purpose that we have come on board in the initiative taken by the Ministry for Tourism and Culture, the private sector and all the esteemed sponsors of the event, in collaboration with the Malta Transport Authority, the police and public transport service providers.

More than ever before, social corporate responsibility is increasing and needs to flourish much more in events and exhibitions that bring people closer together in Valletta, as Malta's capital.

I welcome you all to Valletta once again.

Dr Borg Olivier is mayor of Valletta.