Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar, together with the Sliema Residents Association, Residenti Beltin and the Malta Tourism Society, has welcome the proposed new policies intended to regulate the tourism accommodation market. However, they warned that they are “too little too late.”
In a joint statement by Astrid Vella o.b.o. Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar, The Malta Tourism Society, Sliema Residents’ Association and Residenti Beltin, they said that the tourism accommodation market “has grown out of control due to building heights granted to hotel developers and the explosion of short-let rentals.”
The NGOs also stressed that “this situation is further aggravating Malta’s overdevelopment and over-population problem, not only due to the excess tourists themselves but also due to the need to recruit more foreign staff to service their needs.”
While acknowledging that tourism is “very important for Malta,” the NGOs said that “international tourism recommendations indicate that once tourists exceed residents by over 1.5, increased stress is experienced.”
The NGOs warned that “restaurant/cafe noise and congestion in Valletta and tourist locations including Gozo, is eroding authenticity and residents’ well-being, while parking, public transport and traffic congestion problems are reducing productivity and work-life balance.”
In 2024, Malta received 3.56 million tourists, a 19.5% increase from 2023, therefore last year Malta “welcomed” some 5.5 tourists per resident, far in excess of the recommended 1.5. This year’s statistics already show an increase of 16.7% over last year, said the NGOs.
During August 2024, the tourist-to-resident ratio in St Julian’s reached an extraordinary 126.4, meaning the tourist population temporarily exceeded the resident population by over a quarter, said the NGOs. Valletta followed with an intensity of 70, a dramatic increase of 16 points from the previous year’s 53.5, while Sliema’s population density reached 27,374 persons per sq km, increasing more than 10,000 over the resident baseline.
The NGOs said that while “limiting new hotel applications to 400 beds and withdrawing the right to add 2 storeys are moves in the right direction, they are felt to be too little too late, for in order to fill all the hotels that have been granted permits so far, tourism needs to rise from 3.56m to 7 million.”
The organisations also questioned how Malta will cope with doubled tourist numbers, in terms of beaches, sea/air pollution and infrastructural stress on public transport, roads, water, drains and garbage which cause resident resentment.
“Short-let accommodation is further impacting quality of life due to noise and garbage, as many landlords oblige guests to take out their garbage irrespective of collection days, leaving garbage uncollected for days. Management companies taking on too many properties are part of the problem,” stated the NGOs.
They noted that “some 20% of short-term rental accommodation in Malta operate without a license from the MTA, how will they be regulated? The demand for short-let accommodation also has a social cost, raising property prices for young couples.”
“Mass tourism is already undermining residents’ quality of life. FAA and the residents’ groups support Swieqi mayor Noel Muscat’s suggestions that licenses should be subject to compliance, with mandatory waste management plans, noise controls and revocation of permits for repeated abuse,” stated the NGOs.
They added that tourism community fees could be introduced as in other tourist hot-spots, where part of short?let revenues fund local infrastructure, while on-the-spot fines need to be introduced.
“Other tourism hubs ban hen and stag parties, why is Malta is the only European tourism hub to tolerate bad behaviour, while police enforcement is virtually non-existent? In a market driven by consumer reviews, tourists who are disappointed by the noise, dirt, overcrowding and traffic congestion in Malta will discourage the very quality tourists that the MTA rightly seeks to attract,” they stated.
The NGOs noted that “Malta is now the most congested tourist destination in the EU. Is Government prepared to buy out tourism structures and return them to their natural state as in Palma de Majorca?”
They concluded by saying that “if the Maltese authorities are serious about quality tourism, it will all boil down to enforcement of new regulations and putting the brakes on new permits/licences until carrying capacity studies of tourism areas are carried out and their results implemented. Are the authorities prepared to do that?”
Photo: FAA