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Tourism Minister Plays Down Airport Chief’s Stark Warning That Malta’s Travel Recovery Worst In Southern Europe

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Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo has played down a recent warning by the head of the Malta International Airport that the island’s travel recovery rate is the worst in Southern Europe as a result of ever-changing COVID-19 rules.

“There is recognition of the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 on the travel industry. The Government’s position on travel is based on scientific evidence and prudence based on the ever-changing scenario of the pandemic,” a spokesperson for the minister told Lovin Malta when questioned about Alan Borg’s warning.

“Keeping in mind the geographical size of the Maltese Islands together with the pandemic climate, we need to balance volumes with higher yield per tourist. The tourism recovery plan is based on a strategy of tourism niches’ segments diversification that is useful enough to spread tourism inflows throughout the year.”

“Considering the challenges of kickstarting a tourism industry that was hit by the worst crisis in history and the travel health regulations that needed to be adhered to in order to safeguard the health of residents and visitors alike, it can be said that tourism traffic to the Maltese Islands progressively improved week after week during the summer months to the extent that for the first time since 1999, October [2021] faired better than September.”

Tony Zahra, president of the hospitality lobby group MHRA, told Lovin Malta that the feeling within the industry is that while January and February are always difficult months for tourism, this year is tougher than usual.

However, he said he expects things to start improving at the start of March, citing predictions that the global Omicron wave would have subsided by then.

“If that proves to be the case, then consumer confidence can return. When consumer confidence returns, we will be in with a good chance for travel to Malta to start picking up. Hopefully our recovery will be a strong one.”

Data released by Airports Council International showed that Malta only registered a 33.5% travel recovery rate for the period between January and November 2021.

This is lower than the likes of other Mediterranean countries, such as Greece (52.5%), Cyprus (44.3%), Spain (41.7%) and Portugal (40.3%).

October was the Maltese airport’s best-performing month of the year, with 428,000 passenger movements. 

Borg said this was due to a delayed peak in global demand for holidays following the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions, which shot back down after the emergence of the Omicron variant in November. 

Malta launched new travel rules this week, stating that Maltese vaccine certificates for adults aged 18 or over will only be valid for initial vaccine cycles completed within the past three months or boosters within the past nine months.

This diverges from rules adopted by the European Commission last month, which established a binding acceptance period of nine months from the original vaccine cycle for all EU vaccine certificates.

ACI Europe, a council that represents European airports, has urged the European Commission to urgently investigate Malta for “breaching” EU travel rules, while the EU have confirmed they are in touch with the Maltese authorities to seek clarifications.

Do you think Malta should update its travel rules?

READ NEXT: PN President Blasts Vaccine Certificate Rules: ‘It’s About Control, Not Containing COVID-19’ 

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]

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