Election candidate Arnold Cassola has asked the standards commissioner to investigate Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo for conflict of interest after he reportedly approved a free five-day cruise offered to the CEO of the Institute of Tourism Studies, Pierre Fenech, and his wife. The cruise company, Viking, was at the time negotiating with the ITS on courses for ships' staff.

The Shift broke the story, saying Fenech told it that he had cleared the central Mediterranean cruise with the tourism ministry.

Cassola insisted that Fenech should never have accepted this sort of gift, which constituted a conflict of interest, and he should not have had the ITS paying for his Malta-Ancona-Malta trip. 

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