Malta synonymous with Knights and Crusaders

This article in yesterday's The Times (online only for a few weeks) discusses the opportunities for Maltese tourism marketing that arise from exploiting the historical links with Crusaders and Knights. Joseph Muscat, a popular member of the European Parliament makes the case for a campaign that focuses on putting Malta's history on the global map:

The United States is nearly always the place where trends are set. Europe and
Asia follow suit months later. The first reality shows, the father of all the
Big Brothers of this world, were aired in the United States. Practically all the
different contortions of this phenomenon emerged from there too, including the
tasteless Who's Your Daddy? where an adopted child gets to guess who are his
natural parents from a given set of people. Useless to say that the show will
soon be exported elsewhere. At the same time, there are other trends which are
much more worth noting and which have interesting potential for our country.

One of these trends is what seems to be the Americans' current passion
for everything that has to do with the Crusaders, the Templars and the Knights
in general. Some say this passion was subconsciously triggered off by George
Bush's war on terror, which is many times personified by extreme Muslim
militants. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, which took The New York Times bestseller
list by storm more than 18 months ago, was the main catalyst of the Americans'
new born interest in this sector. The Templars and their symbols play a key role
in the controversial historical plot put forward by Mr Brown. There were many
other works that spawned from this book, many of which have the crusades and the
different orders of the Knights as their main theme. Major networks, including
NBC and CNN, have also produced prime-time documentaries related to these
issues. This was the first sign that the trend would be relayed from the printed
to other media.

In fact, in less than 12 months, the major movie producers will have released at least three blockbusters on this theme. The first was National Treasure, in which Nicholas Cage plays the part of an Indiana Jones type of hero who is after a treasure that Christopher Columbus brought from Europe and which the screenplay connects to the Knights. Soon we will have the second movie, Kingdom of Heaven, in which Orlando Bloom plays a crusader in what is said to be an epic movie. In the meantime, Ron Howard is filming the big screen version of Dan Brown's book, with Tom Hanks playing Harvard professor Robert Langdon. These movies are and will be hitting the United States, Europe and elsewhere by storm and are likely candidates for box office top spots.

In other words, the Crusaders and the Knights in general are back big
time. To the mind of many people, Malta is synonymous with all this. It goes
without saying that those responsible for marketing our country should move
quickly to make a short-to medium-term campaign focusing on Malta's historical
ties with the Knights. Given the unfortunate events that took place in Asia,
many holidaymakers worldwide will be seeking elsewhere for their holidays in the
near future. Focusing at least a part of our resources to put part of our
history in evidence would help us reap the benefits of an up-and-coming global
trend. It is likely that such a campaign would catch the attention of new
markets of tourists having a relatively higher purchasing power. But to do so, we must be quick and creative. And, of course, we must get our act together and hasten the upgrading of our infrastructure and save historic places, such as Fort St Elmo, from the shameful state they are in.

Read more articles by Labour MEP Joseph Muscat here