Holiday rumours

Rumours hit tourist island, writes Roger Munns for Tribune Properties. He says 'Malta could be off the list of destinations offered by major tour operators from next summer:

Visitor numbers to the Mediterranean island of Malta could fall dramatically as major tour operators consider pulling the island out of their holiday brochures. While nothing has been confirmed yet, it has been reported that at least one of the tour operators is seriously considering withdrawing Malta as one of their destinations, and the fear among Malta hotel owners and those in the holiday industry is that once one holiday company pulls the plug on the island, others will follow, relegating Malta from a mainstream holiday island offered by major travel agents to smaller specialist companies.

But First Choice Holidays, winner of the 'Holiday Company of the Year' travel award in 2002, 2003 and 2004 and one of the UK's best known holiday companies, has told the independent Malta travel guide YourMalta.com that despite being named in the Malta press as the company most likely to do so they have never said they were pulling out of the Malta holiday market, but did admit that the Malta market was "increasingly difficult" to sale.

Malta has been struggling for some years to adapt to the modern traveller, but government figures released for March showed a year on year drop in tourists of nearly 10 per cent.

And most worrying of all was that the number of tourists arriving from the UK, Malta's main market, fell by over 13 per cent, and visitors from Italy, a market the Tourist Office had been trying to cultivate also fell. Holidays in Malta and the related tourist sector are a major source of employment in Malta, and with unemployment running at over 8 per cent any fall in tourists could spell long-term damage to the island's economy.

Another sector of the economy that could suffer with the Malta holidays market is real estate. Property in Malta has risen in price in recent years, and 2004 saw Malta achieving the highest increase among the EU countries, with speculators buying property in Malta in the hope that joining the EU would see Malta real estate increase in value in the short and medium term. Tribune Properties, who specialise in Malta Real Estate, view the potential downgrading of holidays in Malta as a double edged sword...