Reasons for tourism's decline (1)

I read with interest the various points made by the Tourism Minister and the MHRA in the report Tourism Lowest In A Decade. While I can wholly appreciate their efforts and concerns, these figures should not have come as a great surprise.

I left Malta last year after living there for 32 years. I am a Maltese national who for a number of reasons had to relocate to the UK. This July I returned to my beloved island on a short visit to my family and friends and decided to stay at a four-star hotel in the south.

Here is my experience, and the experience of a number of tourists I met at my hotel.

First impressions of Malta, upon exit from the airport is that the country is dirty and shabby. Almost all the cars you see are just full of dust, buses spewing black smoke, roads dusty and extremely dangerous to drive in not only because of the road conditions but by the apparent complete disregard of drivers towards other drivers and pedestrians.

When we arrived at the hotel, the reception there was more of a service I would come to expect from a bad three-star hotel, than a four-star.

The person who opened the locked hotel doors at 2 a.m. was wearing flip flops, a creased shirt and shorts. The hotel room looked shabby with uncomfortable pillows and peeling paint. The staff was grumpy and in some cases blatantly rude.

Although I am Maltese, a number of shops (including the hair salon in the hotel), and service companies tried to overcharge me for their service or product. It is amazing how quickly the price dropped as soon as I spoke to people in Maltese!

Finally, Malta is expensive - very expensive! I found many items and services comparable to prices within the UK. Now, if I was travelling to some third world country, I could easily compare the services received in Malta to those received in countries such as Thailand, Vietnam or Laos, all of which I have visited. But let us not forget that the cost of services in these countries is less than a tenth of that in Malta. I can smile at bad hotel service when I might be paying Lm1 a night in Laos, but not when I am paying Lm30. I can smile at the fact that a poor taxi driver in Vietnam is overcharging me by Lm 0.25, but not when he is trying to rob me of Lm7 in Malta.

The responsibility for Malta's tourism plight does not rest only with the Malta Tourism Authority, or the MHRA, but with each and every individual living there. I remember there once was a TV campaign to educate the Maltese about tourism. Something like that, but on a larger scale, should take priority over any effort to bring in more tourists, who will have a very bad experience and give Malta a bad name with future potential travellers!