Economic
Strategy 1
To maintain tourism’s share of the country’s GDP and to ensure that it continues to receive priority as a major pillar of economic development.
Rationale
For more than 70 years, tourism has been at the forefront of Malta’s economic development and prosperity. It is one of the original economic pillars on which the Maltese economy diversified from its historical reliance on its previous military role.
Tourism and hospitality can be termed as indigenous economic activities which tap primarily into the country’s natural, socio-cultural, historical and unique attributes.
As a result, tourism has the capacity to merge in a seamless manner with the socio-economic fabric of Maltese society, integrate with the landscape and provide new scope and meaning to features and activities rendered less relevant or even obsolete by the passage of time.
In recent years, tourism has faced a number of pressures, some from without and some from within. In terms of external pressures one can list the growing international competition and the constantly changing phenomenon of traveller preferences. Domestically, it has had to operate within a much wider range of economic services which created sectoral overlaps, diluted the manpower traditionally available to the sector and distorted the accommodation offer with prime site collective accommodation being redeveloped for alternative use and a resultant skew into private, peer-to-peer accommodation which dramatically changed the landscape of Malta’s receptive capacity offer. The successive years of record growth until 2019 also laid the groundwork for the realization that Maltese tourism needed a new direction based on a more planned and selective approach.
Objective
To properly and continually measure tourism’s economic impacts, shares and contributions by using established tools and methodologies. By so doing, to achieve a broader understanding of its continued evolution within the Maltese economic scenario so as to ensure that it continues to retain its place as a
major economic pillar.
Goals and Actions
GOAL 1
To engage with the National Statistics Office for the regular production and publication of a
Tourism Satellite Account for Malta.
Actions
Action 1. Establish a system to work hand in hand with the NSO to develop a wish list and timetable for the regular, annual publication of a Malta Tourism Satellite Account.
Action 2. Set out a joint approach towards organically growing the number of published TSA tables in line with available data.
Action 3. Undertake the necessary capacity building on the tourism sector side to fully peruse and interpret TSA data.
Action 4. Regularly publish and publicise TSA data to selected audiences ranging from policy makers to sectoral players, students and the general public.
GOAL 2
To start benchmarking Malta’s tourism economic performance with comparable international data.
Actions
Action 1. Take a more active role in monitoring and following tourism economic measurement methodologies including for sub-sectors from a range of international leading organisations including UNWTO, EUROSTAT and OECD.
Action 2. Ensure full comparability of data sources and methodologies to ensure correct interpretation and utilization.
Action 3. Annually publish Tourism Economic Performance indicators in a user-friendly manner.
Action 4. Lead to a broad understanding of tourism’s changing share and performance by benchmarking it with other key, competing economic sectors.
GOAL 3
To widen the dimension of Maltese tourism economic data by developing sectorial and regional management tools.
Actions
Action 1. Building and expanding on the national tourism economic data to start producing a range of management tools which breaks down performance into regional and sectoral metrics.
Action 2. To produce data relative to Mainland Malta, Gozo and eventually the other identified specific geographical areas. Toanalyse and interpret this data.
Action 3. To produce data covering the main identified motivational segments. To analyse and interpret this data.
GOAL 4
To integrate tourism economic intelligence into planning and decision making systems undertaken by the Ministry responsible for Tourism and the Malta Tourism Authority through regular reviews and discussions.
Actions
Action 1. To review different options for utilization of economic intelligence data with stakeholders.
Action 2. To discuss findings with stakeholders.
Action 3. Forward suggestions emanating from Actions 1 and 2 for necessary policy actions by Ministry responsible for the Tourism Sector.