Insider Special Edition: You
are president of MHRA, an
association that represents hotels
and restaurants in Malta, one
of the smallest countries in the
Mediterranean. How does it feel
to see your Association and Malta
play such a pivotal part in the
Mediterranean?
Tony Zahra: I am humbled.
This has been a humbling time.
I feel humbled and honoured. I
feel supreme pride in what we’ve
done. Obviously I and all of us at
MHRA want to see more, and for
Malta to be more of a leader in
the Mediterranean.
Just because we are small in
size, we still want to be seen as
leading in good practices, in the
hospitality industry and in many
other things. That is my aim
and the feeling of seeing people
coming to Malta in droves to
discuss the industry is a fantastic
feeling.
I: In times of old Malta featured
highly in many aspects connected
to the Mediterranean. Can this
be a move to see bigger things for
Malta and the Med in general?
TF: Certainly! What we are trying
to do is achieve a situation where
Malta will be the place to get the
different stakeholders of the
Mediterranean to come and discuss the hospitality industry and
anything else that might be on the
agenda at that particular moment
in time. Dialogue starts the whole
process but then we move on to
actions planned out and devised.
“Each country should focus on its specificities”
TF: Sustainability in anything that
you do has to be the way forward
because unless you’re sustainable
in what you’re doing then there
simply is no way forward.
...numbers
are not all the
answers—we need
good quality and
preferably well
I: Travellers in huge numbers
have always flocked to the Med.
But the push is now for more
quality, more refinement, more
sustainability. What is the way
forward?
32
2015
spread over the
whole year
There is no doubt that there is a
different mix of tourists visiting
the Mediterranean. Visiting in
summer when the sun and the sea
are at their most enjoyable is extremely important – perhaps the
priority for a region that attracts
people who are all too often faced
with cold, grey weather which usually keeps you inside.
But besides the sun and sea attractions one has to also emphasise,
and if possible make known, the
other side of our region—the cultural part, the part that can be enjoyed all year round. One has to see
the resources and correlate them
with the qualitative requirements
of the tourist in question.
Although we talk of numbers and
how important they are we also have
to look at their sustainability. How
many can a country, a region or a
INSIDER SPECIAL EDITION