The tourism impact on Marsascala over the past 50 years : the locals' perspective

Abstract

Tourism is regarded as one of the strongest pillars of the Maltese economy. Forming part of the south tourism zone, Marsascala is a seaside village which, in the past, used to attract many tourists, mainly due to operation of a four star hotel, between 1982 and 2007. Consonant with more recent trend on tourism management, the notion of sustainability has been factored in. This study investigates the perception of the three local stakeholder groups, the authorities, businesses and community, regarding the impact tourism had on Marsascala, how, in their opinion, tourism affects the locality and whether they are in favour of recognising the locality as a tourist zone. Structured interviews were used in order to gather information from authorities and businesses, questionnaires were used to collect a bigger sample of the views of the community; hence a mixed research approach was adopted. The research suggests that most of the respondents regard the overall tourism impact as positive, and agree with the decision of placing Marsascala back on the tourist map. Furthermore, they also expressed their wish to see the revitalisation of the former four star hotel and/or building of other hotels to regenerate tourism in the locality. The research also identified a common sentiment amongst the community and business stakeholders, that in the past years, Marsascala suffered from a lack of political will. Moreover, these two stakeholder groups came up with a number of suggestions as to what more can be done in order to attract tourism.