The strategy that prevails in the tourism industry still appears to be one: never mind the quality, let’s just go for the numbers. Despite declarations by policymakers of an impending change in direction towards a higher-paying segment of the market, they don’t seem to be preventing investors from pouring money into increasing capacity rather than efforts being made to remedy today’s tired and outdated strategies.

A Deloitte document entitled Carrying Capacity Study for Tourism in the Maltese Islands, commissioned by the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, has identified some of the threats to the industry’s future that have long been known. Malta, the study found, would need to nearly double its pre-pandemic tourism volume from 2.8 million per year to 4.7 million in order to fill 80 per cent of the country’s hotel beds after all the planned new ones come on the market. Low occupancy, though, would damage profitability and even threaten economic stability, the study warned.

There is no one better than tourism operators who work on the coalface of the industry to identify what is wrong with the present “let’s go for numbers” strategy. Stakeholders identified “traffic, littering, waste management and poor urban environment, namely overdevelopment and uglification, as well as lack of authenticity” as persistent problems.

It’s something of a Catch-22 situation. Increases in capacity and occupancy will only multiply the harmful effects of over-tourism in our small, already overpopulated island, damaging the future prospects of the industry itself.

The comment made in the Deloitte report – “Improved tourism management and focused investments are required to sustain growth” – only makes sense if growth is defined as improved returns for investors and the community rather than the inflation of visitor numbers.

Yet, the trend seems to be in the opposition direction. The news that Ryanair is launching a “record” winter schedule with 55 routes will undoubtedly be welcome by locals, who want better and more affordable travel options, and by hoteliers keen to fill beds in the shoulder months.

The Irish airline will continue to fill the space left by the national airline and exert pressure on the government for more concessions.

Yet, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is not accountable for Malta’s tourism strategy. He will undoubtedly exploit the government’s blind commitment to investing in low-quality mass tourism. O’Leary says Ryanair “will continue working closely with the Maltese government to lead Malta’s post-COVID tourism traffic and jobs recovery”.

Is it too much to expect tourism policymakers to tell taxpayers how much the various direct and indirect subsidies given to the industry are costing them? What financial incentives is Ryanair being given to use Malta as one of its bases? How much is the daily net return on each visitor’s stay in Malta after netting gross income by electricity and water subsidies and other infrastructure costs?

Deloitte confirmed that just 40 per cent of workers in the tourism sector were Maltese in 2019 and this ratio is decreasing. While the tourism industry remains crucial to the economy, there is no doubt that the economic phenomenon of diminishing returns has set in.

Deloitte’s Michael Zarb made some sobering comments, even if many would argue that they are just platitudes policymakers are determined to keep ignoring. “The key is balance. We need to reduce oversupply risk, increase cohesion, get a better network faster, remove bottlenecks, get more out of what we have and reduce and mitigate the impact on the environment”.

The tourism authorities appear to be incapable of striking this “balance” and addressing tourism’s weaknesses with difficult decisions. This is terrible news for the industry in the long run.