‘UK marketing expenditure to be published in an audit report’ – Clayton Bartolo

Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo said today that the expenditure of marketing exercises in the UK will “be published in the audit accounts report of the year”.

Asked by The Malta Independent about Malta’s expenditure in marketing for the UK tourist sector, Bartolo said that “the exact numbers will be published in the audit accounts report which is released every year through the MTA. In the coming days I (Bartolo) will be tabling the audit accounts of 2019 and in the coming year the following will be tabled also”.

He was reacting to the news that Malta has once again been left out of the green list of countries published in the UK on Thursday, which makes it compulsory for people entering the UK from Malta to be in quarantine for 10 days.

In response to questions made by The Malta Independent and other journalists, Bartolo said that the government “gave all the information and documents required to the UK government”. Malta has considerably cut down the number of new cases in the past weeks.

“From an economic aspect we have to make sure that our country attracts tourists not only from the UK but from a number of other countries,” he said.

“Our plan for the next ten years with regard to the tourism sector does not solely rely on the UK tourist market […] during the coming summer months both France and Germany are showing promising signs of generating a substantial amount of tourists to our islands”.

At the same time, the minister noted that in spite of the restrictions, some Britons are still choosing Malta as their holiday destination. “Although Malta is not on the UK green list, a substantial amount of UK tourists are still coming to Malta”.

This however does not mean that Malta marketed itself only in the UK. Bartolo said that there were strong efforts from a marketing perspective in countries like Poland and Germany which seem to be bearing their fruit.