Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546037
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 AUGUST 2026 NEWS CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 The exercise comes in the wake of record-breaking tourist arriv- als and increased resident frus- tration with rowdy young tour- ists, who make living in some parts of Malta hell. Last month, the MTA initiated enforcement proceedings against a number of holiday apartments in a Swieqi block after they host- ed tourists seen throwing glass bottles into the streets below. This was followed by MTA in- spections in Swieqi that found six unregistered short-let accom- modations and 67 other proper- ties with at least one violation. MaltaToday collected a large sample of short-let listings ad- vertised on Booking.com in Swieqi, St Julian's, Gżira, Msida, Pembroke, and Gozo. Journalists then checked each one of the listings against the Malta Tourism Authority's regis- ter of licensed properties, which is public. The register lists more than 7,300 licensed properties. Every licence in it is linked to a property name, an address and a reference number. Maltese law requires every short-let to be licensed by the MTA, and the licence number must be shown on the listing, including online. This is what al- lows a guest, a neighbour or the authorities to check who is run- ning the property and whether it is allowed to operate. A missing number on the book- ing engine does not automatical- ly mean a property is unlicensed, since the licensed host might just have left the field blank. But it does mean that anyone looking at the listing has no way to check whether it is registered with the authorities. When coming across dubious listings with no licence num- bers, MaltaToday painstakingly searched the addresses of the listings on the MTA database to see whether the property is known to the authority. The exercise revealed that at least 100 properties in these se- lected localities alone did not ap- pear on the MTA database. The findings showed the fol- lowing unlicensed properties: 26 in Swieqi, 19 in Gżira, 14 in Msida, 14 in St Julian's, 8 in Pem- broke, and 19 in Gozo. Fake licences and no licences Some of the unregistered prop- erties had no licence number at all. Others claimed a fake licence number that doesn't exist in the MTA's registry, and some prop- erties listed what seem to be mo- bile and ID numbers as licence numbers. This newspaper then attempt- ed to book a number of nights at the unregistered properties to verify that they are still oper- ational. A fair share of them were fully booked for the remainder of the summer. In some cases, the same licence number appeared on multiple listings, often under different names. In one case, a number was on seven different apart- ments and studio flats; in others, on three or four listings. Some- times the number was valid; oth- er times, it wasn't on the register at all. Essentially, a licence number meant to register one property was used for several. Booking platform doesn't require licence numbers We also went through Booking. com's sign-up process to list a fake property. We were required to provide a property name, location, photos, details, house rules, amenities and price, before reaching a step called "Legal info", where the site asks for a licence number as Mal- tese law requires. We left that field empty. The sign-up carried on anyway. The step was marked as un- finished, but it did not stop the listing being built. Under Book- ing.com's own agreement, it is the host who must hold a valid licence and the platform says it reserves the right to check. But at the point of signing up, no li- cence number is needed to pro- ceed. Before the listing could be made public, Booking.com needed to verify the location of the prop- erty. A support agent told this newspaper that after the location is verified, the listing could be made public. The agent did not ask for a licence number despite the field being left empty. The journalists stopped short of going through the final step that would have listed the prop- erty on the booking engine. MTA identified 18 unlicensed properties Responding to questions sent MTA clampdown identifies The number of unlicensed properties found in this exercise provides a glimpse into a segment of the tourism market that is increasingly resembling the Wild West MTA enforcement officers hit the road in Swieqi in response to ongoing mayhem by young tourists holidaying in short-let apartments (Photo: MTA)