Victoria Local Council have recently put forward their proposals to the Minister of Finance for the rehabilitation of the historic quarters of Victoria. The proposals are shown below:

Proposition – Making the historic quarters of Rabat, Gozo, more attractive and more accessible in the best interest of all concerned, be it the resident, the tourist or the commercial outlet.

Insertion / addition – Chapter 10 (Gozo), sub-measure ‘Tourism’

Rationale – The Overall objective is to make Old Rabat and therefore Gozo a more competitive destination by attracting more high-yield, culture-oriented domestic and overseas tourists visit Gozo and Rabat, that they stay longer, spend more and return more often, thus enabling sustainable growth of the tourism industry.

The most appropriate and effective way to interest the visitors in coming to Old Rabat and spending more time there, utilizing the commerce and hospitality services available (which one must say are still in abundance but unfortunately decreasing in numbers because of the complex realities of the particular area), is to increase the accessibility and attractiveness of the Old Rabat to high-yield visitors by creating a holistic system of interpretation and presentation of the cultural heritage.

Rabat is the old suburb of the Citadel. Rabat in Arabic and Archaic Maltese stands for suburb and whereas its origin is much older this name was first documented as Rabbatum in a notorial deed drawn by Andrea de Beniamin on 22nd February 1455. The area, situated on a hill near the centre of the island, has been settled since Neolithic times. It is known to be first fortified during the Bronze Age approximately around 1500 BC. It was later developed by the Phoenicians and continued into becoming a complex Acropolis by Roman times, enclosing by the fortifications both the Cittadella and the Rabat. The town is known to have grown in size well beyond the original hill-top setting to spread onto the underlying plain.

In the Middle Ages, the area’s human settlement appears to have been restricted back to the hill-top, although a suburb appears to have continued functioning at its base. The Medieval township at the Cittadella is documented to have thrived up to the 16th Century, and included a densely packed urban settlement. Military developments in the 16th Century resulted in the abandonment of this township and in its transformation into a purely military outpost. In fact the architectural heritage of the Cittadella, as it stands today, is made up almost entirely of military structures. Nonetheless some important architectural monuments were constructed in the Baroque style over the remains of the medieval town.

In the past 25 years, the efforts of the Government in Victoria focussed mainly on the Cittadella. However, as stated by MEPA, the Cittadella, even if included in the Malta’s Tentative list to World Heritage without the Old Rabat, cannot be justly interpreted without its historic “suburb” – the Old Rabat of Gozo.

Moreover, Victoria is unique in its role in all Maltese islands. It acts as Gozo’s main hub for commerce, culture, public administration, leisure, health care, education and transport. Many of these functions are carried almost exclusively by the Old Rabat hence it deserves a due scale and diversity of public investment to cope with that role.

Currently most tourists to Rabat, Gozo, focus their visit on the Cittadella and while they occasionally wander into the Old Rabat there is neither emphasis on the richest architectural and historic features nor available means of interpretation and accessible information on the cultural heritage of the capital of Gozo. Hence the immense potential of the Old Rabat is not fully utilised for achieving the goals of tourism development in Gozo. To reinstate the balance of the Cittadella and Rabat, to achieve synergy of efforts and to fully exploit complementarity with the action taken by the Government in the Cittadella and Villa Rundle, one needs to upgrade accessibility of the site, highlight its historic features, and communicate interpretation of the site to the visitors.

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