COVID-19: Hoteliers back calls to remove remaining travel restrictions

The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) has supported the call by travel and tourism stakeholders to end all remaining travel restrictions.

The MHRA said that while it recognised efforts by the national authorities in managing the spread of the pandemic, the reduction of COVID-19 protocols to date did not go far enough.

“The patchwork of restrictions do nothing to prevent the spread of COVID but rather unnecessarily complicate the running of operations, leading to delays at the airport and business inefficiencies,” MHRA president Tony Zahra said.

“Over the past few weeks, we have seen economies reopening. It is time to remove ineffective restrictions and allow people to travel freely.”

Zahra said that international travellers are looking for safe destinations that offer the path of least resistance. “Right now, despite that we are a safe destination with all the vaccinations carried out, we are still considered a path of resistance for many travellers.”

The MHRA said the situation was continuing to impact the recovery negatively, despite prospects for a pick-up in tourism for the coming season being highly positive.

“The war in Ukraine has created a situation where countries such as Cyprus and Turkey, which depended heavily on Russian and Ukrainian tourists, will concentrate their efforts on marketing their products in other source countries, most of which are our markets. We, therefore, expect serious competition in these markets and need to be able to compete on a level playing field, making it imperative that such restrictions are removed immediately,” Zahra said.