An analysis of sustainable transportation in the Maltese tourism sector

Abstract

Sustainability in every sector of the economy and society nationally and internationally, is not only to recommend, but also essential. This bachelor thesis, entitled “An analysis of sustainable transportation in the Maltese tourism sector”, discusses the potential to include sustainable transportation in Malta transportation system and its benefits to the tourism sector. This work aims at presenting a general overview of the transport sector in Malta and point out issues, such as high car dependency. The research intends to show that a potential solution would include enhancing active transportation, i.e. walking and cycling, especially in the Hub area. These aims are reached thanks to a review of existing literature on the matter, and a research part composed of a survey distributed to tourists and residents and interviews with representative of Transport Malta, the Maltese Tourism sector and the academic world. The literature review defines sustainable transportation as a combination of environmental, economic and social factors, using the most relevant indicators to analyse the sustainability of the transport sector on the Maltese main island and presents planned development in both tourism and transport sector. The research, survey and interviews, are used as a basis for discussion on hypothesis and allow to draw conclusions. In a nutshell, the conclusion reached includes that there is great potential for sustainable transportation such as walking and cycling in Maltese tourism, depending on the political will for investing in such.