Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech, flanked by MTA Chairman Sam Mifsud and MTA officials addressing press conference at the ITB Fair in Berlin

Fair's fair(s)

ITB 2007

The Chairman of the Malta Tourism Authority, Sam Mifsud, earlier this month led a delegation to the ITB fair in Berlin. This is the largest travel fair worldwide and attracts interest from everywhere, but more particularly from Germany itself and all other regions in Europe.

The German market is an extremely important one for Malta and in fact it is the second most important market, second only to the UK. Although the German outbound market is again having for now a sluggish year in the bookings of holidays, the MTA is confident nonetheless that Malta will be able to win back the losses in suffered from Germany in 2006 when a severe lack of airline capacity led to a reduction in the number of German visitors to Malta. In fact the MTA has this year taken concrete steps very early in the season to ensure that adequate seat capacity is available to meet the demands of Germans wishing to travel to Malta. After already being very active in getting German Wings to Malta and to as well support their operation, the MTA also worked closely with the national carrier AirMalta to increase capacity in airports and periods where there was still a clear lack of it.

At this year's edition of ITB a well attended international press conference on the Malta stand was addressed by the Minister of Tourism and Culture who also highlighted the efforts that went into addressing the issue of airline capacity. At the event the MTA also launched the German language version of its www.visitmalta.com booking portal. This was presented by David Mifsud, the authority's CEO who guided the media through the more important pages in the site.

MTA's participation at ITB was as well supported by a good number of local hoteliers and travel agents who conducted meetings at specially set-up booths on the Malta stand. Present as well at ITB on the MTA stand were executives from AirMalta, including the airlines Chief Operating Offer, Brook Friesen.

This year at ITB the MTA also invited and hosted a group of local journalists from leading media to give them a taste of the world's largest travel fair and to offer them as well the opportunity of seeing MTA and its local partners "in action".

TUR Gothenburg

Exhibitors from more than 100 countries participated in the TUR trade and consumer fair held in Gothenburg between the 22nd and 25th March 2007. TUR is the main tourism fair in Sweden and also the biggest fair in the Nordic region. Organisers registered over 50,000 visitors during the 4 days of the fair.

The Maltese Islands were well represented with The Malta Tourism Authority's own stand in the Mediterranean area of the exhibition, next to the stands of other popular Mediterranean destinations like Italy, Montenegro and Croatia. MTA's participation was supported by Ann-Chatrin Fallberg, Air Malta's area manager in Scandinavia and the leading Maltese incoming agencies, event organisers and hotels involved in getting Swedish leisure business and groups to the Maltese Islands.

MTA was represented by its Head for Tour Operating & Leisure, Carlo Micallef and by Patricia O'Connell, MTA's representative in the Nordic region. Meetings were held with the main tour operators and group organisers, who welcomed MTA's improved presence in the region following the re-engagement of Ms.O'Connell, and who reported a positive sales trend to Malta in spite of problems with flight timings and schedule.

Moscow International Travel and Tourism Fair

The Malta Tourism Authority once again participated in the Moscow International Travel and Tourism Fair (MITT) between 21 and 24 March 2007. The Malta stand was located in a hall with a number of popular European destinations for Russian travellers and featured a number of booths which were subcontracted to travel trade companies involved in Russian tourism to Malta. MTA was represented by its Director Marketing Support and Development Leslie Vella who was accompanied by Mr John Michael Maistre and its Representative for Russia and the CIS States, Mr Anthony Caruana. A high level Air Malta delegation led by the airline's Group Head Commercial Mr Brock Freisen was also present at the Fair. Meetings were held with all tour operators present while a number of new initiatives were discussed, including the introduction of an Air Malta flight from Rostov-on-Don to Malta during Summer 2007. The feedback received from the trade attending the fair is that Malta should continue to expect a further year of strong growth from the Russian market, following the increase registered in 2006. The Maltese Ambassador to Russia H.E. Dr Mario Costa hosted a reception for the Maltese and Russian Travel Trade in the Malta Embassy on the occasion of the fair.