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“Our tourism industry is resilient enough to weather the storm” – Dr Mario de Marco

“There’s more to our tourism industry than hotels and restaurants. It is also a myriad of other people employed in other sectors such as transport, tour operators and call centres which confirm that tourism and tourism related business is a very important component of Malta’s economy.”

The Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism in the Office of the Prime Minister, the Hon. Dr Mario de Marco said this when visiting the World Aviation Group (WAG) on the occasion of the second anniversary of their operations in their Business Service Centre at the Old Terminal Building in Luqa. Dr de Marco was welcomed by the Group’s Managing Director, Mr Leslie Cassar, the Group’s CEO, Mr Domnic Attard and Airmalta plc Chairman Mr Lawrence Zammit.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that there are more than 24,000 people in full-time or full-time equivalent employment directly or indirectly in tourism. It is commendable that there are commercial initiatives such as this one which are building on our strengths in tourism and applying them to tourism-related services industry.

He added that this is why the clouds looming over the international tourism industry are of major concern to government. This is confirmed by the UNWTO’s projections for next year which are predicting negative growth for international tourism figures.

Dr de Marco insisted that government is convinced that our tourism industry is resilient enough to weather the storm, and that is why it has increased the MTA Budget for 2009 by €3.5 million – effectively doubling it over a period of 10 years.

He also referred to the three-pronged strategy adopted by government and the MTA to address the situation, i.e. working on increasing accessibility to our islands; more marketing – which includes new tv campaigns not just in the UK, but also in Germany, France and Italy; as well as that of investing in our tourism product – where the €120 million from EU funds will be spent together with the recently announced CityGate Project bring which will bring this total to up to €200 million. An example of how these funds will be used was announced last week, with the launching of a €10 million Grant Scheme to support sustainable tourism projects by enterprises.

Dr de Marco stressed that the private sector has a major role to play in all these initiatives as well as in ensuring that they guarantee that they offer good value for money. This apart from the fact that we must always keep in mind the need for sustainable tourism where tourism-related business have effective sustainability planning; maximize social and economic benefits for the local community; enhance cultural heritage; and reduce negative impacts on the environment.

He concluded by congratulating WAG on their success achieved over a relatively short period of time as well as on their “Greener Living Project” aimed at making WAG carbon neutral by encouraging employees to undertake various initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint consistently; through clean-up and tree-planting activities.