The Jewel in the Crown
Published on Malta Today on 19th November, 2006 by Evarist Bartolo.
Trying to offer everything to everyone is a bad strategy for the Gozo tourist product. The international travel press has been focusing far more on the potential of Gozo as a desirable tourist destination. Gozo’s unique natural attractions seem to hit the eye of travel journalists who rarely find any major weaknesses when recommending this island to their readers.
But are our plans for tourism in Gozo going to help us exploit this island’s potential? To answer this question truthfully we need to understand what is so attractive about Gozo – the laid back atmosphere which surrounds life in Gozo, the unique beauty of the countryside, the quaint villages with their characteristic small shops which have long disappeared elsewhere including in Malta, and the general tranquillity of life, are perhaps the main attractions of this island.
These characteristics are quite distinct from those of Malta, and therefore it will be a mistake to market Gozo as just an extension of the Maltese islands. But the problem of selling Gozo does not stop with the marketing of the island. The stakeholders of this industry seem to be adopting conflicting strategies which will affect irreversibly the potential of this island to be a boutique tourist destination.
Like in every other business development plan, we need to make choices of where we want to position Gozo in the tourism market. Do we believe that Gozo’s tourism should be based on having thousands of daily visitors, either of tourists based in Malta or cruise liner passengers who are offered a day tour to the island?Or should the aim be to attract affluent tourists working in hectic European cities who are finding a short, away-from-it-all holiday through low-cost airline travel to be an increasingly desirable objective in their stressed lives? Trying to offer everything to everyone is a bad strategy for the Gozo tourist product, as it is for most other products.
Tourism can be a much stronger contributor to the economy of Gozo if the strategic plan for this industry exploits the competitive advantage of this island. We have to sacrifice short-term gain for long-term steady and sustainable growth.
At present we are trying to cater for everyone’s needs from the tourist day tripper who is rushed across the island in a few hours, to the more sophisticated affluent tourist who wants that special atmosphere that one finds in Gozo, and to the Maltese families who own property in Gozo and travel there on weekends on a regular basis.
One understands the desire of Gozitan property developers to ride on the property boom bandwagon and make some substantial profit in a relatively short time. But is this really securing the future for tourism in Gozo? Is MEPA really sensitive to the need of preserving the unique characteristics of Gozo which are, among other things, valuable economic asset, or do they have a one-size-fit-all policy when it come to issuing development permits?
I am not among those who have already become very pessimistic about the prospects of Gozo retaining its charm as a result of over-development in the last few years. But we have certainly reached a point where any further wrong decisions can write the death sentence of good quality tourism for this island.
However desperate government may be to boost some life in the languishing tourism industry in Malta and Gozo, we cannot afford the consequences of short sighted decisions aimed at producing immediate results, especially in the context of a fast approaching general election. And this is not just political speculation on my part.
During the past several months a number of potentially damaging plans have been openly discussed, and in some cases backed by an official stand taken by the government. The development of a golf course at Ta’ Cenc, the extension of development schemes on arable land, the prospect of a major property development project in Hondoq ir-Rummien, and the possibility of building an airstrip on agricultural land, could all be very serious threats to the future prospects of tourism in Gozo.
Of course, if we opt to make Gozo look more like Malta then one could live with these developments even if time will undoubtedly show us how short sighted we would all have been in adopting this strategy.
But I argue that Gozo is, and should remain, the jewel in the crown of tourism in the Maltese islands. And if most of us believe in this, we should militate against any decisions which will relegate Gozo to being just another over-commercialised island in the Mediterranean.
Trying to offer everything to everyone is a bad strategy for the Gozo tourist product. The international travel press has been focusing far more on the potential of Gozo as a desirable tourist destination. Gozo’s unique natural attractions seem to hit the eye of travel journalists who rarely find any major weaknesses when recommending this island to their readers.
But are our plans for tourism in Gozo going to help us exploit this island’s potential? To answer this question truthfully we need to understand what is so attractive about Gozo – the laid back atmosphere which surrounds life in Gozo, the unique beauty of the countryside, the quaint villages with their characteristic small shops which have long disappeared elsewhere including in Malta, and the general tranquillity of life, are perhaps the main attractions of this island.
These characteristics are quite distinct from those of Malta, and therefore it will be a mistake to market Gozo as just an extension of the Maltese islands. But the problem of selling Gozo does not stop with the marketing of the island. The stakeholders of this industry seem to be adopting conflicting strategies which will affect irreversibly the potential of this island to be a boutique tourist destination.
Like in every other business development plan, we need to make choices of where we want to position Gozo in the tourism market. Do we believe that Gozo’s tourism should be based on having thousands of daily visitors, either of tourists based in Malta or cruise liner passengers who are offered a day tour to the island?Or should the aim be to attract affluent tourists working in hectic European cities who are finding a short, away-from-it-all holiday through low-cost airline travel to be an increasingly desirable objective in their stressed lives? Trying to offer everything to everyone is a bad strategy for the Gozo tourist product, as it is for most other products.
Tourism can be a much stronger contributor to the economy of Gozo if the strategic plan for this industry exploits the competitive advantage of this island. We have to sacrifice short-term gain for long-term steady and sustainable growth.
At present we are trying to cater for everyone’s needs from the tourist day tripper who is rushed across the island in a few hours, to the more sophisticated affluent tourist who wants that special atmosphere that one finds in Gozo, and to the Maltese families who own property in Gozo and travel there on weekends on a regular basis.
One understands the desire of Gozitan property developers to ride on the property boom bandwagon and make some substantial profit in a relatively short time. But is this really securing the future for tourism in Gozo? Is MEPA really sensitive to the need of preserving the unique characteristics of Gozo which are, among other things, valuable economic asset, or do they have a one-size-fit-all policy when it come to issuing development permits?
I am not among those who have already become very pessimistic about the prospects of Gozo retaining its charm as a result of over-development in the last few years. But we have certainly reached a point where any further wrong decisions can write the death sentence of good quality tourism for this island.
However desperate government may be to boost some life in the languishing tourism industry in Malta and Gozo, we cannot afford the consequences of short sighted decisions aimed at producing immediate results, especially in the context of a fast approaching general election. And this is not just political speculation on my part.
During the past several months a number of potentially damaging plans have been openly discussed, and in some cases backed by an official stand taken by the government. The development of a golf course at Ta’ Cenc, the extension of development schemes on arable land, the prospect of a major property development project in Hondoq ir-Rummien, and the possibility of building an airstrip on agricultural land, could all be very serious threats to the future prospects of tourism in Gozo.
Of course, if we opt to make Gozo look more like Malta then one could live with these developments even if time will undoubtedly show us how short sighted we would all have been in adopting this strategy.
But I argue that Gozo is, and should remain, the jewel in the crown of tourism in the Maltese islands. And if most of us believe in this, we should militate against any decisions which will relegate Gozo to being just another over-commercialised island in the Mediterranean.
posted by raxerri at
12:20 AM
