More About Malta

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Image: Malta

[This posting is work in progress and will be extended]

As usual there is plenty that is eye-catching all over the Maltese islands. Sliema and Valletta face each other across Sliema Creek. The view from Hastings Gardens in Valletta is less well known than the spectacular panorama from Upper Barrakka Gardens in the opposite direction across Grand Harbour, but it also reveals the changing nature of urban Malta. It isn't surprising that this tiny Mediterranean country attracts just over a million visitors every year - equal to two and a half times the population. Yet while low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and GB Airways offer a cheap route from the UK, the traditional main market for Maltese tourists, the market itself is moving upscale. Deliberate development policies by the Maltese Government - the starting point for all marketing strategies are the decisions about policies - have been pushing for these changes. A long-standing British market has been one of low cost and low spend, accepting all too often poor services, food and souvenirs with that famous attitude of "mustn't grumble" that seems to have stemmed from putting up with wartime restrictions - which many of those visitors actually did during service in Malta in the 1940s. For the rest of the twentieth century this was the pattern, leaving tourism here well established but stagnant.

The situation is becoming very different. High standards of training at the Malta Institute of Tourism Studies in hospitality and tour guiding have improved the quality of service personnel in those areas. There are reported to be no one- or two-star hotels - perhaps now no three star, as the last of those turn towards conversion into permanent apartments or language-student hostels. A string of four- and five-star developments has been the characteristic over the last two decades. Some are replacements for older properties which once stood in St Julians and Golden Sands Bay. Others are additions, shoe-horned into urban streets or set along parts of the rocky coastline where they enjoy glorious views across the Mediterranean.

[More to follow]