It’s been some time since I’ve watched any native TV; so I’m unsure if these outdated Malta Tourism Authority advertisements are even nonetheless working, at the moment. However there was a time, not too way back, when our TVM viewing was usually interrupted by a collection of MTA commercials, informing us all that…
‘Mit-turiżmu, jiekol kulhadd!’
Now: for the advantage of non-Maltese readers… that’s a kind of native idioms that doesn’t translate very effectively into languages like English (or no less than, not with out making our whole nation sound like a bunch of tribal CANNIBALS, straight out of a kind of outdated ‘Popeye’ cartoons.)
Truthfully, although. If that’s the form of message the MTA intends to impart… why not simply throw in a picture of vacationers being sowly ‘boiled alive’, in a cauldron on a seashore someplace… whereas vultures circle overhead; and hungry natives put together for his or her village ‘feast’, within the background?
Let’s face it: it could no less than be just a little extra trustworthy. And in addition to: is it even doable that no one on the MTA ever paused to contemplate the chance that…. among the vacationers visiting Malta may really get to see (if not hear) that exact slogan (it was on billboards too, you already know), and, um, ‘ask the locals what it really means’?
As a result of so far as I see: there isn’t a life like method of translating ‘Mit-turiżmu, jiekol kulhadd’ into English… with out both:
a) sounding just a little like ‘Hannibal Lecter’;
b) candidly admitting that we solely ever view this stuff referred to as ‘turisti’ – together with the one asking the query, by the way in which – actually as ‘fodder’, with which to nourish our personal (more and more grasping) aspirations of ‘wealth and prosperity’.
In different phrases: whereas the official English transation is perhaps ‘Tourism Feeds All people’ – and that’s already problematic sufficient – everyone knows that what the slogan REALLY means, is…
…effectively, exactly what it says on the tin: ‘All people feeds on vacationers’. In different phrases: “All people (however EVERYBODY) on this nation, will get to by some means ‘feast’ off the two.3 million-or-so-tourists who’re naive sufficient to truly select Malta as a vacation vacation spot, every year: solely to be shamelessly exploited, at virtually each single stage of their presence…”
Not, maybe, as a result of all of us actively ‘exploit’ these vacationers ourselves, on a day-to-day foundation… however somewhat, as a result of our nation’s financial system has now come to DEPEND so very closely on tourism, that it fairly actually tanslates into the ‘day by day bread-and-butter’, of our whole nation.
THAT, successfully, is what the MTA actually supposed to say, with that ill-advised slogan. And whereas we should concede that there’s a small aspect of reality, to that assertion – within the sense that ALL tourism industries, in all places, exist solely to ‘generate profits off vacationers’ (and most vacationers appear completely glad to associate with it, too) – a niggling little query stays.
Is it actually clever, on the Malta Tourism Authority’s half, to promote exactly THAT a part of our nationwide strategy to tourism – i.e., probably the most mercenary, exploitative, and totally indefensible side – because the hallmark of our nation’s whole ‘tourism coverage’?
I don’t assume so, myself… partly as a result of I really feel that there are much better methods, to ‘promote Malta’s tourism trade to locals’ – like, um, reminding that us that we as soon as had a status for being a ‘hospitable nation’ (earlier than evolving into the species of ‘blood-sucking parasites’, that we appear to have turn out to be at the moment) – however partly additionally for causes that are actually changing into acutely seen, simply by opening the newspapers.
Right here you’ll must bear with me some time, as a result of we’re about to embark on quick a tour of… effectively, not ‘all’, by a protracted shot; however no less than ‘some’ of the tourism-related initiatives which might be presently beneath method in Malta and Gozo.
This week, there have been two separate information gadgets, each printed on the identical day, detailing new purposes for resorts to be both constructed, or prolonged, in residential (i.e., ‘non-touristic’) areas.
The primary – full with artist’s impression – was about an extension to the prevailing resort on the prime of Rue D’Agens (Savoy, to be exact), the place Sliema meets Gzira; and the second informed us that “a planning utility has been introduced to rework a residential palazzo in Birkirkara’s city conservation space in to a resort housing 38 rooms”; sited proper subsequent to the Santa Liena church, within the central (older) a part of city.
Because it occurs, I used to dwell not far away from that very same church myself, round 20 years in the past; and I nonetheless go to the Wednesday flea-market, every so often. As for Sliema, it was the city I used to be born and raised in… and I nonetheless dwell (virtually) inside view of Rue d’Argens, to this very day.
However whereas I’m sorely tempted to chip in my very own ideas, on how each these resorts may impression the character, and atmosphere, of their respective localities – for what it’s price: I believe the Savoy extension may really enhance the present vista, if solely barely; whereas I discover the Birkirkara resort design to be totally HIDEOUS, by any normal. ‘Nuff stated – what really troubles me, about this form of mission, is that…
… no one appears to be questioning the nationwide tourism technique – or lack thereof – behind this sudden drive to flood the whole nation with ‘little’, ‘massive’, and typically ‘GARGANTUAN’ new resorts, and vacation flats, virtually in all places you flip your gaze.
And far more beside: no one appears to be contemplating – finally we’ve been by, in our ‘lengthy, scorching July’ – whether or not the nation’s infrastructure may even SUSTAIN the quantity of vacationers we are actually attempting to ‘feed off’, within the first place.
As a result of these two examples symbolize simply the tip of a somewhat monumental ice-berg (and, it have to be stated, we additionally appear to be steering our personal model of the ‘Titanic’, straight into its path.)
Simply to offer you a small taster of what I imply: that is from a ‘High 20’ listing of recently-opened resorts in Malta, compiled by a web site referred to as ‘New Lodges Information’. [Please note, however, that it only includes hotels of a certain standard; and I didn’t even bother mentioning any that have fewer than 20 rooms… of which there were at least six, mostly in Valletta].
> Palazzo Castagna Boutique Resort, Ghaxaq (opened March 2023. 26 rooms)
> AC Resort by Mariott, St Julian’s (opened March 2023. 125 rooms)
> Palazzo Ignazio, Valletta (opened June 2022. 30 rooms)
> Grand Suites Resort Residences & Spa, Gzira (opened Might 2022. 225 rooms)
> Land’s Finish, Sliema (opened November 2021. 78 rooms).
There are, in fact, many extra on that listing… which, like I stated, doesn’t even function any of the ‘substandard’ vacation lodging models, which might be additionally going up as we communicate.
And I want hardly add that it doesn’t embody the 31-storey, multi-purpose ‘extravaganza’ of a resort (really, ‘two-hotels-rolled-into-one’) that has now been authorized – however not but constructed – slap-bang in the midst of Paceville’s already-oversaturated St George’s Bay.
Now: on the danger of repeating a small a part of an article I wrote final week… all this new tourism growth occurs to be going down, at a time when the Malta Lodges and Eating places Affiliation itself is elevating the alarm in regards to the hazard of an ‘oversupply’, in Malta’s hotel-accommodation capability.
As way back as September 2019 – i.e., earlier than any of the aforementioned resorts have been authorized – MHRA president Tony Zahra himself had warned that: “There’s going to be overcapacity and all people is simply going to undercut one another”… even predicting a “massacre, if the trade have been to proceed rising because it presently is.”
Not solely that: however three years later, the affiliation printed the outcomes of its newest Deloitte report… which discovered that: “Malta might want to appeal to virtually 5 million vacationers a 12 months [Note: our current figures are between 2.3 and 2.6 million] to make sure the sustainability of all current and deliberate resort mattress inventory.”
Bought that, of us? Again in September 2022, the MHRA had predicted – on the idea of 2022 figures, naturally – that Malta would wish to DOUBLE its annual tourism figures… simply to have the ability to fill all of the hotel-rooms that already existed, on the time; or have been about to seem available on the market.
At the moment, nonetheless? These calculations have to be revised, to cater for the handfuls – if not scores – of recent resorts which were constructed (or deliberate) over the previous 12 months alone… in addition to, in fact, all the opposite dozens that may little doubt be constructed (or deliberate) within the close to future.
As a result of… effectively, that is the place we come again to that slogan: ‘Mit-turizmu, jiekol kullhadd’. Fairly clearly, there may be one other factor the MTA didn’t pause to contemplate, when developing with that phrase. How was it going to be interpreted by the tourism trade itself: to not point out, by budding entrepreneurs who may not be energetic in that exact discipline… YET?
As soon as once more, the reply is: what it says on the tin. ‘All people feeds on tourism’, keep in mind? That’s what vacationers really exist for, within the first place: to satiate our ever-growing gluttony, for extra… and extra… and MORE…
Can anybody be stunned, then, that we’re presently constructing so many MORE new resorts, and resort flats, than everyone knows that this nation can really maintain, earlier than ‘imploding’?
And can ‘shock’ itself even be doable, in any respect… when the entire home of playing cards lastly comes crashing down about our ears, as predicted, just like the over-loaded stack of ‘Jenga-tiles’ that’s so intently resembles?
I believe not myself… however then, what the heck would I even learn about ‘tourism’, anyway?
