Source: PKF Malta¸ August 2013

As part of the ongoing pilot project at PKF Malta¸ a second study regarding tourists’ perception of facilities offered was conducted. A more detailed and comprehensive set of questions were devised with the main aim being that of obtaining more information on the various facilities on offer. Moreover¸ each service was further broken down into several sections which would lead to a more informative view of touristic preferences. Accommodation¸ for example¸ was not treated as one whole variable¸ but was split into 4 different sections; the quality of the rooms¸ the quality of the food¸ the quality of the service and staff as well as the price. This would give a better indication as to which sectors of each facility are lacking or popular. Whenever respondents gave bad ratings¸ they were asked to give reasons behind the motivation for the bad rating. After all¸ knowing that something is not functioning properly but not knowing what is actually wrong with it is much less helpful than getting to know what the source of the problem is. Furthermore¸ respondents were asked whether they wanted to pass any other comments about the facility offered¸ thus giving a greater insight into the respondent’s experience with that particular facility.

A pilot survey was conducted on Monday 15th July outside the Gozo Channel terminal in Cirkewwa. Three interviewers performed this survey testing¸ Mr. Malcolm Attard¸ Mr. Luca Sacco and Mr. Jaromir Sant. Following this pilot survey¸ answers were analysed for any potential misleading questions.

The actual survey was held over a period of one week starting from Tuesday 16th July up until Monday 22nd July. The areas where tourists were surveyed were Cirkewwa on Tuesday 16th July¸ Valletta (Bus Terminus¸ Republic Street and Upper Barrakka Gardens) on Wednesday 17th¸ Thursday 18th and Monday 22nd July. Interviewers were briefed on how to approach respondents and it was ensured that they were familiar with the format and questions of the survey. The interviewers over these 4 days were Mr. Jakub Kledzik¸ Mr. Thomas Sitbon¸ Mr. Mateusz Boksa¸ Mr. Luca Sacco¸ Mr. Malcolm Attard and Mr. Jaromir Sant. A total sample size of 144 respondents was obtained.

In general¸ ‘Accommodation and Restaurants’ were quite positively rated by tourists.

With regards to public transport¸ the schedule of the buses definitely needs to be reviewed and improved since this resulted to be one main concern for tourists when travelling within Malta. Having said this¸ the responses on the quality of the buses seemed to be evenly spread out.

85% of the sample didn’t even consider car hire as a source of travelling. Also¸ taxi service resulted to be used by only half of the sample¸ and so one may easily conclude that tourists are generally more inclined to use public transport.

Two aspects which definitely need to be highlighted from this survey are undoubtedly the cleanliness of the cities and roads. Unlike cleanliness of the beaches¸ these issues should be tackled and steps should be taken in the near future.

Archaeological and Cultural sites seem to be quite unpopular with young people¸ but faired quite well in terms of cleanline