Gozo has seemingly established itself as a Christmas Island, Gozo Tourism Association CEO says
Malta’s sister island has seemingly established itself as something of a Christmas Island, the CEO of the Gozo Tourism Association told The Malta Independent as domestic tourism appeared to boom over the holidays.
With the Christmas and New Year’s festivities over, The Malta Independent reached out to Joe Muscat, the CEO of the Gozo
Tourism Association, to gauge how the tourism sector fared throughout the holidays and what the near future is expected to hold.
“It seems that Gozo has established itself as a Christmas island,” Muscat said. He continued that from the indications available, the Christmas holidays were a “good period for the tourism sector,” where the island saw a good number of visitors, both foreign and local. He said that the mix seemed to be “around 40% foreign and 60% domestic” – meaning that the majority of visitors were Maltese.
The GTA CEO explained that the holidays were a period where the festivities resulted in a long weekend, as Christmas and the New Year both fell on a Monday. Long weekends are typically busy periods for the hospitality and tourism sectors, especially during holidays.
He said that the visitors seemed to have a sizeable number of attractions where they could spend their time. He added that the GTA noted that whenever people visited its website, Island of Gozo, there seemed to have been a greater interest in the activities being organised on the island throughout the holidays. “We saw a great number of visitors on the website searching for activities to experience during this period.”
“All in all, it was a busy period for the tourism industry,” he said. “Being an island, no matter how much you do to limit seasonality, you still have that period where you suffer a little, and the month of December helps us and helps strengthen the tourism sector.”
Regarding restaurants, he said that a comment the GTA has gotten from them is that there has been a slight decrease in the spending per capita, being “a little less than what they are used to.” He said that there are various reasons for this, “one of the principal reasons being that obviously, inflation is having its impact on everyone’s spending power.”
The Malta Independent asked Muscat about how Gozo is preparing for the upcoming Carnival festivities, which will take place on the weekend between 9 and 11 February. He replied that it is “good to a certain extent” that the period where the tourism industry is more relaxed has reduced, as immediately following December and January they are faced with Carnival, “which is then basically immediately followed by Valentine’s Day.”
He continued that this means that the sector will not have the long break that it usually has between Christmas and Carnival, and so “the sector will still be trained per se throughout this period.”
It has recently been announced that one of the four Gozo Channel ferries, the MV Malita, will be out of service throughout January for dry-dock maintenance, and so this newspaper asked Muscat how Gozo will be affected by this temporary lack of a fourth ferry.
“Obviously Gozo cannot go on without its fourth ferry,” he said, going on that the fourth ferry is a necessity and one of these ferries being docked significantly affects the island’s connectivity and accessibility.
He concluded by saying that the GTA hopes that the fourth ferry will be available for the Carnival period, and that it is important that the island is able to work with all four of the ferries whenever there is a long weekend.