Climate change : impacts on the Maltese tourism and hospitality industry : reflections, responses and repercussions

Abstract

Favourable climatic conditions at small island destinations act as a powerful economic driver because it gives competitive advantage for tourism related activities. Literature (Butler 1999; Hall and Lew 1998) acknowledged that tourism is a highly climate-sensitive industry. For this reason, negative impacts of climate change are an increasing concern amongst destinations where tourism is a major contributor of the economy. The problem further increases, for small island destinations, in particular the island state of Malta. The island’s limited natural resources and scarce adaptively to climate change renders it more susceptible to the effects of climate change. In this context, this research sets out to understand whether Maltese tourism stakeholders are aware of the impacts of climate change upon the Maltese tourism and the hospitality industry. This research intent was to: 1. Examine the prevailing opinion regarding impacts of climate change on Maltese tourism destinations. 2. Determine and analyse the short and long term perceived threats of climate change that will impinge on the destination sites. 3. Determine policy driven framework that address the effects of climate change. 4. Evaluate future development and management systems for sustainable regional planning and marketing that simultaneously acts as a decision support tool for the research of sustainable development in the Maltese islands. With such analysis, the researcher will be based on a sound understanding of those management issues that will have most relevance for future tourism management of the Maltese islands in particular the hospitality industry. These in turn will help to counterbalance between negative impacts of climate change upon the environment and the tourism industry and strive for more competitive and sustainable tourism practices. The literature (Veal, 1994) acknowledged that a sense of contemporary and consolidation of ideas is fundamental for sustainable development. To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the intended steps and methods of this research paper employed qualitative approaches. The results unravelled that Maltese tourism stakeholders do not think that climate change is affecting Maltese tourism in general and their business. However, the stakeholders perceived that future rise in temperature will threaten the operational costs of their business, mainly due to price inflation of water and electricity. Despite the vast policy driven framework that addresses the effects of climate change, the results proved these as being nothing more than lip services. In fact, the results proved that local tourism enterprises are being reactive rather than proactive in assessing the impacts of climate change on their operations. Moreover, sustainable measures are seen by stakeholders as a burden that comes at an additional cost. The results also showed that any investment involved, is being done to reduce the fixed costs of utilities rather than to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism that contribute to climate change. All this suggests that stricter rules should be imposed and that lip service should be converted into action because evidence showed that self- regulation is not enough. It seems that Malta is struggling to improve the culture of the local business community towards a greener economy. This, however, entails a perseverant attitude of the Maltese government towards impacts of climate change on the tourism industry which currently seems to lack the attention it deserves.