Supercities

Supercities is an internet project that aims to promote Malta abroad. Click on the 'cities' section for videp clips of Maltese towns. Joe Grima, the brains behind the project, explains:

We created this website because I understand that today’s selling tools are so totally different from the 1980s. When the Americans attacked Libya, and we lost all our European bookings in a flash, we went round Europe and gave 16 press conferences in 11 days in different countries. I went on Mike Buongiorno’s programme to explain to Italians that we are not part of Libya and at the time those were very legitimate tools. Today, the biggest and best tool is the Internet, because people book online. Before they used to want to see what the prices are, but today they want to see what they’re booking. We have invented two new ways of using the Internet. First, we do everything on video, not by clicking on photos – we show a restaurant or a hotel by showing you a film. We present the tourism infrastructure on video. The website itself is attractive and is linked to other websites, the best of which is www.visitmalta.”

The supercities.eu website is sponsored by the Tourism and Culture Ministry, but Joe Grima is still looking for a strategic partner. “My dream is to offer this service for free. That would give us a number of advantages because when we provide a free service, we can choose the face of Malta that we want to present and not have to bow down to commercial demands. If it’s free, we can do it quicker and better. However, so far there’s still a small charge.” The official launch for the project is on Tuesday, 24 April, and Joe is hoping for this kind of sponsor to materialise by then.

So how does it work? “Well, basically anyone who offers a tourism-related service can be on this website. For the time being, it will be translated into English, French and German but we have an agreement with the Malta Tourism Authority to go into other languages later. We can create a video for those who don’t have one, using the services of Bonaci Media Entertainment. The charge will include the one-minute video, which is on the Internet for one whole year – every minute of that year you can have someone clicking onto your product or service. However, if someone already has a commercial ready, we can just convert it into Internet language and put it in.” ...Our target market is those Europeans who take their holidays in Europe – that is around 370 million people. From our research, we have found that most people who use the Internet understand English.”...