Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1505544
bience, of their respective lo- calities – for what it's worth: I think the Savoy extension might actually improve the current vista, if only slightly; while I find the Birkirkara hotel design to be utterly HIDEOUS, by any standard. 'Nuff said – what truly troubles me, about this sort of project, is that... ... nobody seems to be ques- tioning the national tourism strategy – or lack thereof - be- hind this sudden drive to flood the entire country with 'little', 'large', and sometimes 'GAR- GANTUAN' new hotels, and holiday apartments, almost everywhere you turn your gaze. And much more beside: no- body seems to be considering – in spite of everything we've been through, in our 'long, hot July' – whether the country's infrastructure can even SUS- TAIN the amount of tourists we are now trying to 'feed off', in the first place. Because those two examples represent just the tip of a rath- er enormous ice-berg (and, it must be said, we also seem to be steering our own version of the 'Titanic', directly into its path.) Just to give you a small taster of what I mean: this is from a 'Top 20' list of recently-opened hotels in Malta, compiled by a website called 'New Hotels Guide'. [Please note, howev- er, that it only includes hotels of a certain standard; and I didn't even bother mentioning any that have fewer than 20 rooms... of which there were at least six, mostly in Valletta]. > Palazzo Castagna Boutique Hotel, Ghaxaq (opened March 2023. 26 rooms) > AC Hotel by Mariott, St Ju- lian's (opened March 2023. 125 rooms) > Palazzo Ignazio, Valletta (opened June 2022. 30 rooms) > Grand Suites Hotel Resi- dences & Spa, Gzira (opened May 2022. 225 rooms) > Land's End, Sliema (opened November 2021. 78 rooms). There are, of course, many more on that list... which, like I said, doesn't even feature any of the 'substandard' holiday ac- commodation units, that are also going up as we speak. And I need hardly add that it doesn't include the 31-storey, multi-purpose 'extravaganza' of a hotel (actually, 'two-hotels- rolled-into-one') that has now been approved – but not yet built – slap-bang in the middle of Paceville's already-oversatu- rated St George's Bay. Now: at the risk of repeating a small part of an article I wrote last week... all this new tourism development happens to be taking place, at a time when the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association itself is raising the alarm about the danger of an 'oversupply', in Malta's ho- tel-accommodation capacity. As long ago as September 2019 – i.e., before any of the aforementioned hotels were approved – MHRA presi- dent Tony Zahra himself had warned that: "There's going to be overcapacity and every- body is just going to undercut each other"... even predicting a "bloodbath, if the industry were to continue growing as it presently is." Not only that: but three years later, the association published the results of its latest Deloitte report... which found that: "Malta will need to attract al- most five million tourists a year [Note: our current figures are between 2.3 and 2.6 million] to ensure the sustainability of all existing and planned hotel bed stock." Got that, folks? Back in Sep- tember 2022, the MHRA had predicted – on the basis of 2022 figures, naturally – that Malta would need to DOUBLE its annual tourism figures... just to be able to fill all the ho- tel-rooms that already existed, at the time; or were about to appear on the market. Today, however? Those cal- culations need to be revised, to cater for the dozens – if not scores – of new hotels that have been built (or planned) over the past 12 months alone... as well as, of course, all the other doz- ens that will no doubt be built (or planned) in the near future. Because... well, this is where we come back to that slogan: 'Mit-turizmu, jiekol kullhadd'. Quite clearly, there is another thing the MTA didn't pause to consider, when coming up with that phrase. How was it going to be interpreted by the tour- ism industry itself: not to men- tion, by budding entrepreneurs who might not be active in that particular field... YET? Once again, the answer is: what it says on the tin. 'Every- body feeds on tourism', re- member? That's what tourists actually exist for, in the first place: to satiate our ever-grow- ing gluttony, for more... and more... and MORE... Can anyone be surprised, then, that we are currently building so many MORE new hotels, and hotel apartments, than we all know that this country can actually sustain, before 'imploding'? And will 'surprise' itself even be possible, at all... when the whole house of cards finally comes crashing down about our ears, as predicted, like the over-loaded stack of 'Jen- ga-tiles' that is so closely re- sembles? I think not myself... but then, what the heck would I even know about 'tourism', anyway? maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 AUGUST 2023 OPINION 11