Beyond funding

Abstract

Over these past few weeks, there has been debate on the need to improve our tourism product. The discussion was triggered by a proposal made by Frank Salt (as chairman of the Product Planning and Development Directorate of the Malta Tourism Authority) for Government to invest some LM30 million in tourism areas. This call was quickly followed by MHRA president Winston Zahra's claim that unless there is such investment tourism in Malta would decline. Clearly, funding of projects to upgrade tourist areas is an important issue and Mr Salt and Mr Zahra were right to highlight the need for more investment in the tourism product. Beyond funding, however, there are problems related to governance. In other words, public authorities are sometimes unable to implement projects or initiatives because of various constraints, some of which they may not have control over.