Discussions with another 5 destinations at an ‘advanced stage’ for travel to and from Malta – Minister
Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli said yesterday that discussions are ongoing with a further five destinations in terms of travel to and from Malta.
On 1 July, Malta is set to reopen its doors to 19 destinations after Health Minister Chris Fearne announced that “we have won the war” against the COVID-19 pandemic. But some of those are either still closed for travel or never had any direct flights between them and Malta. Now, it has emerged that Malta is in discussions with even more potential destinations.
The minister was addressing a press conference on the recovery mini budget that was announced last Monday.
She emphasised that diplomatic talks did not stop and intensified over the past days.
As an example, the minister mentioned that in the first days of discussions, Malta was not included in Latvia’s list of acceptable travel destinations, however, she explained the government’s position and asked Latvia for a reason. “It was mentioned that Malta caught a substantial amount of cases at the time. Through discussions, we explained that our strategy was different to other countries, where we were one of the countries conducting the most tests in the world, and so the more one tests the more one catches those with infections. Latvia then declared Malta as one of the countries it is ready to open to.”
She said that the government will weigh things day by day, so if a country’s situation changes, Malta will not think twice of reverting its decision in terms of opening the airport to flights from said country.
The minister was asked about news reports that the EU Commission wants to reopen EU borders to EU countries. The minister said that she is taking note of what the EU Commission said and stressed that Malta never waited for any EU guidelines and acted. As an example she said that when Malta was taking critical decisions to close the airport, the country did not stay waiting for anyone to give the country a signal.
“In the same way and spirit we entered this important phase for tourism in the country. Malta was active in these kinds of talks at EU level but we always pressed on the importance of primarily opening on the concept of safe corridors. Malta was one of the first countries to push this line and obviously we are taking note of what is happening around us. The idea that we mentioned from the beginning was that we will be opening in different stages and in a few days we will announce a number of other countries to add to these destinations.”
Turning to the recovery minibudget announced on Monday, she said that it confirms the government’s strategy on how the Maltese and all those working in the tourism sector “will have a summer.”
The €900 million regeneration plan, she said, will see the majority of it aimed at the tourism sector. She quoted the various stakeholders who praised the plan that the government had unveiled.
The plan is set on two binaries. The first being internal tourism which she said will see thousands of Maltese be tourists in their own country. The second she said is that the government is working to attract foreign tourists to come to Malta. She highlighted that 30% of the Maltese economy depends on tourism.
Farrugia Portelli spoke about saving jobs, and highlighted that the wage supplement will continue over the coming months. She spoke of other support offered to businesses, such as the 50% energy cost reduction for three months, which would mean a maximum of €1,500 for each applicant.
20,000 businesses will be positively affected through this, she said, costing €30 million euros.
She also spoke about license payments for businesses, and how they will be waived. In total there are 12,000 businesses that will benefit from this, 9,000 of which are tied to tourism and include restaurants, hotels, host families, catering establishments and others. Those who already paid the fees will be given their money back.
The minister said that a number of activities will be taking place this summer, one of which, an open cinema in Valletta, will start operating from 25 June onwards. She also spoke of a plan to give life to Valletta.
The minister highlighted the €100 vouchers going to be given to all people over the age of 16.
MTA CEO Johann Buttigieg said that 4 vouchers of €20 will be tourism related. The tourism vouchers will be used for hotels, hostels, guest houses, host families, HFPs, restaurants, takeaways, coffee shops, bars, snack bars, kiosks, excursion operators and diving operators who are licensed by the MTA. The four 20 euro vouchers each will have a QR code which will be scanned, and there an immediate transfer from a government account to the individual giving the service will take place. The voucher will be taken by the catering outlet.”
The other €20 voucher for other establishments closed due to COVID-19 that are not licensed by the MTA will be of a different colour.
He said that after COVID-19, the MTA is working on a strong plan to attract tourists from the markets that are open.
Tourist expenditure grew by average 1bn euros a year when compared to 2010, he said. “We also saw a difference in the kind of tourists that come to Malta, who are younger, and are the tourists we want to attract. Many elderly tourists would be cautious in terms of travelling now, so we will continue with our strategy to bring the younger tourists to Malta.”
He said that potentially the economy will be deprived of around 1.7bn euros in tourism sector as a result of the virus. 30,000 jobs were directly or indirectly impacted measures aimed at stimulating economy. Competition in terms of attracting tourists will be stronger, he explained.