Watch: Tourists Could Know More About Malta Than The Actual Staff, Hotel Manager Admits
The general manager of one of Malta’s largest hotels has expressed his dismay at the lack of Maltese workers within the hospitality industry and said it is diluting tourists’ experiences.
“When I started out in the industry, we would speak to guests and tell them that thanks to the Maltese, the Knights won the Great Siege and the English won the Second World War, and they used to enjoy it. Nowadays you realise you were giving them a particular experience,” Norbert Grixti, general manager of the Grand Hotel Excelsior, said during a discussion on ONE TV’s Awla.
“Nowadays an excited guest could ask a bartender about Mdina or Valletta and it would turn out that he might know even more than the bartender, who might be Serbian.”
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Grixti sought to play down a common misconception that the lack of Maltese workers in the industry is due to the wages on offer.
“We really want to employ more Maltese workers but we simple cannot find them,” he said. “It’s not because we don’t want to pay well. All large hotels pay well because there’s so much competition out there, but it’s hard to find good people.”
He said several foreigners are now employed in all aspects of the hospitality industry, including in the accounts department, which was traditionally dominated by Maltese workers because of its regular office hours.
Why do you think there aren’t many Maltese workers in the hospitality industry?
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