There is a maxim that I find applies particularly well to the tourism industry: if you are not moving forward, then you are moving backward. That is what is happening to our tourism product. Over-construction, lack of maintenance, congested roads and lack of cleanliness are leaving an impression of shabbiness and neglect.

We are moving away from becoming a destination of choice for discerning visitors and becoming the new Magaluf of the Mediterranean. This is bad news for the tourism industry that, for years, invested its millions to upgrade our hotel and restaurant offerings.

We need to rethink our tourism industry. Yes, we need to press the pause button and carefully consider our options for the future. This is the message coming out also from people who earn their living from tourism.

Tourism lobbies in Malta are realising that, despite the plethora of government agencies set up to cater for our tourism product, the thousands of people put on the government payroll and the PR stunts carried out by the government to convince us otherwise, our tourism product is heading in the wrong direction. It hurts me to state that this government has not carried out one major product-enhancement project in the past 10 years.

Successive Nationalist administrations overhauled Malta’s tourism product. From the Malta International Airport to beach replenishment projects, such as the one as St George’s Bay, to pedestrianisation of Valletta and the Renzo Piano project, the restoration of our bastions and fortifications including Fort St Angelo and upper Fort St Elmo, the regeneration of Buġibba and the Golden Mile in St Julian’s, the construction of the Malta National Aquarium, the list is endless.

That list puts the Labour administrations to shame. The Malta Tourism Authority’s headcount today has shot up, yet, it has failed to deliver one major tourism upgrade project. New hotels are being built but the areas around these hotels, in fact, in all tourism zones, leaves much to desire. The neglect, unlawfulness and shabbiness that one finds in areas such as Paceville, St Julian’s and now Valletta cannot go unchecked for any longer.

But the issue goes beyond that. These last weeks of July have highlighted the impact of global warming on tourism destinations in the Mediterranean. Our media screens were inundated with stories of rampant fires, evacuation of tourists, power outages and record-breaking temperatures, which all spell bad news for the tourism industry.

Now we can sit back and convince ourselves that this was a one-off thing. However, experts are predicting that things are only going to get worse. It is no longer a crisis of global warming but of global boiling. I was particularly struck by a comment which said that this summer’s events were triggered by a one-degree rise in temperature. What is going to happen when the temperature increases by another two degrees?

We are becoming the new Magaluf of the Mediterranean

How many more power outages are we going to have to endure? How many more forest fires? How will our hospitals cope with the increased load due to people suffering from heat exhaustion?

This expert said that this rise in temperature is not a question of if but when and the when is sooner than we think. What can we do to prepare ourselves better? We need to first acknowledge the problem and then agree on solutions. And we need to act in unity with other tourism destinations in the Mediterranean. We are facing a common threat and we must act together to solve it.

Tourism destinations, both north and south of the Mediterranean, need to sit down and share experiences of how global warming is impacting them and will be impacting them further with each season that passes. We need to hear from experts on how the rise in temperature is going to impact sea life, vegetation, forests in and around the Mediterranean.

How will life in our cities be affected? We need to hear from tourism experts on how the rise in temperature is going to change people’s travel decisions. How will the rise in temperature impact not only the migration of people from south to north but also current travel trends from north to south? We also need to establish how tourism is contributing to global warming and what can be done to reduce that impact.

These are the kind of discussions that need to be happening. I would love to see a multilateral organisation such as the United Nations World Travel Organisation or, perhaps, even the European Parliament launch a major initiative in this regard. And by major initiative, I do not mean some seminar but, at the very least, the setting up of a group of experts tasked with quantifying the problems that tourism destinations are facing presently and will be facing in the future.

Once we understand these problems, we can start talking about solutions and making decisions on the kind of investments that we need to consider. Will the Mediterranean become less attractive in summer and more sought after in winter? If so, what kind of investment should we be looking to make for the future visitor to our islands?

Mario de Marco

If we ignore the challenges ahead, we will end up with more than just one summer of discontent.

Mario de Marco is the Nationalist Party’s spokesperson on tourism.