Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1499169
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 MAY 2023 OPINION 11 FOR our tourism sector, 2019 was an all-time record-break- ing year on all fronts. Then the pandemic struck and the rest is a horrible history we all lived through. Now - with the pan- demic almost fully contained and travel back in overdrive - is a good time to see where we stand compared to the time before it struck its devastating blow. The figures show that our per- formance in the first quarter of this year overtakes that of the same period in 2019 which was an all-time record. The number of inbound tourists (exc. over- night cruise liner passengers) increased by 4%, bed nights in- creased by 3.8% and the spend on the latter went up by 10.5%. Moreover, the total tourist spend rose from €272 million in 2019 to €312 million this year. That's €40 million more injected into our economy in three months compared to the pre-covid all-time record. Clearly, our strategy is work- ing, our teamwork is function- ing and with everyone's help we are delivering. Poignantly, given that we are talking about January, February and March, the figures confirm our hunch that we can beat seasonali- ty once and for all. Spreading tourist arrivals means spread- ing load on our infrastructure. All good, but now what? The answer is that we must contin- ue to push the envelope. Our top priority should be sustainability because it is a necessity, not a choice. In the ever-changing tourism world, with competition becoming ever fiercer, we face challeng- es that we need to turn into opportunities. To continue to do so we must remain fully committed to improving our practices across the board, ful- ly convinced that the tourists of tomorrow will be more dis- cerning than ever. We must also train a keen eye on diversification and on targeting niche markets with a view to spreading numbers all year round. In certain are- as we are already making sig- nificant breakthroughs. Take sports tourism as an example. According to provisional sta- tistics, in the first three months of this year sports events gener- ated almost 18,000 bed nights. Clearly, we need to smartly pursue the myriad opportuni- ties in other sectors. We are looking ahead to cross new frontiers in this indus- try, like more events and of wider range – music, sports, audio-visual, festivals, and more. In parallel, we are also assiduously exploring emerg- ing phenomena like flexcation - a longer stay mixing remote work and leisure. With our 300 days of sunshine this is truly a window to massive opportuni- ties. These are the sort of paths that take us to the future we as well as our visitors desire. Finally, none of this is possi- ble unless we continue to make it easier for tourists to fly to Malta. Through both a viable legacy airline as well as budget ones we must increase both routes and flight frequency. Our tourism vision and strat- egy are on the right track as the results we're obtaining amply prove. Let us continue to per- severe, to glimpse what lies be- yond the horizon and always mindful what needs to be pre- serve for our benefit, that of our visitors and that of the next generations. 'more housing = Now what? Clayton Bartolo is Minister for Tourism Clayton Bartolo – that strategy SHOULD work, you know. I'm not an econo- mist, obviously; but even I can tell you that the price of any giv- en product/commodity – with the sole exception, it seems, of 'Maltese property' – depends entirely on the 'Universal Law of Supply and Demand'.... ... which, in turn, decrees that: 'any increase to the supply side of the equation (assuming, nat- urally, that the demand remains constant) should always result in an automatic, DOWNWARD price-adjustment'. Except that... it doesn't really, does it? And for this, we have the word of yet another Dhalia and Grant Thornton report – issued in June last year – which found that: "house prices in- creased by 100 per cent [since 2013]"; but also, that "addition- al supply outstripped additional demand in 2020 and 2021 – a reversal of what was observed in previous years...." ... and especially, that: "26,000 housing units are estimated to have come onto the market between 2020 and 2022. This is significantly higher than the estimated incremental housing demand for the same period...." And yet, as pointed out in a Times editorial around two years ago: "instead of having a situation where prices went down due to oversupply, prop- erty prices remained high and unaffordable..." Now: I've left myself for far too little space, to try and actually answer my own question, above (and besides: I am very far from being the most qualified person to do so, in the first place); but for what it's worth... here is my own explanation, for why Mal- ta's property market seems to be permanently at odds, with even the most basic, fundamen- tal Law of Economics. In a nutshell, I think it's be- cause the 'price of property', in this country, does not reflect the intrinsic 'worth' of the land/ building that is actually being bought or sold... but rather, what that property MIGHT one day be worth (if it were to be, say, 'accidentally demolished', and rebuilt as a multi-storey apartment block instead...) So as long as Malta's planning regime continues to permit that sort of 'redevelopment' to take place, within our towns and urban centres... and as long as there is no adequate legislation, in this country, to protect the property market (not to men- tion, the environment) against the inflationary pressures of 'rampant property specula- tion'... ... and above all: as long as gov- ernment of Malta fails to come up with any viable alternative to speculation, as a means of occasionally 'kick-starting the local economy' (or even just so that the average Maltese family might actually be able to make a little money, WITHOUT 'de- molishing their own homes' – and 'ruining their own town- scapes' – in the process...) ... the price of Maltese proper- ty will continue to remain just as 'high and unaffordable', as it is today: no matter how many 'social housing units' the Prime Minister decides to flood the market with, this time round. Just saying, that's all....