A comparison of the Maltese blue and grey tourism product from a wedding tourism niche perspective

Abstract

Malta’s first decades into tourism adhered to blue tourism due to the geographical location, climate and beaches around the islands. However, as the tourism industry reached its saturation point due to high concentration of tourist numbers during particular seasons and in selected locations, the local government decided to impose new policies to ensure that tourism is well-structured throughout the calendar months and balanced in localities around the islands. To ensure sustainability, the tourism industry also shifted its focus to attract more cultural tourism to ensure all year round tourism numbers. This qualitative study research seeks to learn whether these policies are also influencing the wedding tourism niche in the Maltese islands. This research aims to find what wedding couples look for when they decide to come to the Maltese islands to get married; particularly whether the couples look for cultural experiences or sun-and-sea based experiences. Furthermore, the study explored whether the local authorities’ insistence in reducing seasonality has influenced couples’ choices in their wedding arrangements. The results determined whether the tourism policies have been coherent with the wedding tourism niche. As there has been very limited research on wedding tourism in Malta, this study was exploratory in nature and aimed to discover what the current trends in Malta’s wedding tourism are. Twelve participants were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The majority of participants agreed that they would visit more cultural places if they would visit the Maltese islands again. Overall, it can be observed that the efforts that local authorities are placing on the cultural tourism product and on reducing tourism concentration on certain touristic areas are influencing the wedding tourism niche. On the other hand, seasonality is still strong within the niche due to Malta’s weather and climate conditions.