The National Cultural Policy (NCP 2021) emphasises the importance of cultural tourism in enhancing Malta’s cultural heritage and creative industries. The policy aims to integrate culture into the broader tourism strategy, promoting Malta as a destination rich in cultural experiences.
The National Tourism Strategy 2021-2030 focuses on sustaining recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic and contributing to a resilient tourism sector. It highlights the value added of cultural and creative tourism by stressing the diversification Malta’s tourism offerings and attracting high-value visitors.
Malta hosts a variety of cultural events and festivals throughout the year, such as the Malta International Arts Festival, traditional feasts (‘festas’), large-scale concerts and the annual white night (Notte Bianca). These events help add attraction to tourists and showcase Malta’s rich cultural heritage that often serves as visually and environmentally attractive settings.
Greater effort needs to be made to improve infrastructure and accessibility to cultural sites, ensuring that tourists can easily explore and enjoy Malta’s cultural attractions.
Arts Council Malta (ACM) has collaborated with Sound Diplomacy to integrate measures that support music and night-time entertainment into tourism strategies and their implementation.
The Catholic Church in Malta plays a significant role in cultural tourism, both in the light of its close connection with the Knights of St John (1530-1798) as well other historical, cultural and spiritual meanings. Malta has a rich Christian history dating back to the arrival of St. Paul in AD 60. This history is reflected in numerous churches, cathedrals, and religious sites that attract tourists. Some of the most notable sites include St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, also featuring two paintings by Caravaggio, the Collegiate Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck, and the collection of religious sites and artefacts in Mdina and Rabat, as well as Gozo. These sites are not only places of worship but also architectural and artistic treasures. Malta is a key destination for faith-based tourism, especially during significant religious events. For example, the Jubilee Year from December 2024 to January 2026, themed Pilgrims of Hope, has seen Malta hosting various liturgical celebrations and pilgrimages. The Catholic Church in Malta organises numerous cultural events and festivals, including those related to Lent, Carnival and Christmas. These events are vibrant displays of local culture, attracting both locals and tourists.
Cultural tourism may contribute in a significant way to the juncture Malta’s tourism industry finds itself at. The traditional quantitative approach has shown its limits, as seen in the challenges of environmental degradation, urban overcrowding, a rising cost of living and a decline in tourist expenditure when inflation is factored in.
A strategic shift towards sustainable, competitive, quality-focused tourism has been advocated by various quarters. For instance, the Malta Chamber’s ‘Rediscover’ (2021) document offers a detailed road map for change.
Central to this strategy is the need to align with the changing expectations of tourists who increasingly seek authentic and unique experiences. In response, the Malta Chamber initiative suggests offering journeys that immerse visitors in the rich culture and heritage of Malta, catering to the desires of today’s discerning tourists.
By prioritising the development of local talent and skills, the initiative seeks to elevate the uniqueness and the quality of interactions and services that tourists encounter during their stay. A significant challenge that the strategy addresses is balancing the need for development with the imperative of sustainability. The Rediscover vision calls for a tourism model that is responsible and respectful of Malta’s unique environmental and cultural assets. This balance is key to preserving the island’s appeal for future generations while ensuring that current tourism practices are environmentally and culturally sustainable.
Malta belongs to three Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, which highlight the country’s rich cultural heritage and its connections with other European cultures.
The regional dimension plays an important part in mobilising resources addressing cultural tourism. Gozo as national Region of Culture in 2025, as European Region of Gastronomy in 2026 and bidding for European Capital of Culture in 2031 is encouraging the region to develop a multiannual and multidisciplinary programme that explores and combines traditional and contemporary practices across various cultural and creative disciplines such as dance, music, theatre, visual arts, cinema, literature, cultural heritage, architecture, and gastronomy. The programme aims to attract visitors, including tourists, throughout these years by celebrating Gozo’s unique cultural identity. The concern about unbridled development in the field of construction is real and needs addressing.
Through Arts Council Malta (ACM), Malta has developed cultural strategies for each of its six regions: Gozo, Northern, Eastern, Western, Southern, and Ports. These strategies share overarching themes of talent development, audience involvement, and historical heritage innovation. Each region’s strategy includes priorities that promote cultural and creative tourism by highlighting the unique traditions, talents, and historical elements of each locality. These complementary strategies are designed to enhance Malta’s cultural tourism offerings, making the regions more attractive to both local and international visitors.
In terms of regional preparations for the hosting of international cultural happenings that may attract international attention, the combination of heritage assets and creative activity is a key contributor to the development of strategies and their implementation. Traditionally speaking, compared to cultural heritage management in Malta, Gozitan heritage assets enjoy a relatively better social context within which to function significantly in terms of the value assigned to them as intangible cultural heritage as defined by the Faro Convention. The island has had the comparative advantage over Malta of still being able to offer a relatively high level of wellbeing and quality of life for its citizens, which however has been under stress over the past few years due to overdevelopment.
Gozo seems to still enjoy another comparative advantage, namely its natural geographic identity which marks Gozo from Malta and distinguishes many levels of cultural life on the island. The geography of the island predates any formal or informal regional boundaries defining governance, giving Gozo a natural sense of identity and belonging that has nurtured a close, roots-inspired, bottom-up approach to cultural, religious and popular life. A Ministry for Gozo has been in place since the end of the 1980s, with great consistency and stability afforded by the size of the jurisdiction, only later supported by the formation of local councils (1993) and regional ones.
ACM has collaborated with Sound Diplomacy to develop a strategic mapping exercise into Malta’s music and night-time economy (NTE) to be followed by an economic impact assessment. Improved and coordinated governance through an NTE Department and NTE Committee in the guise of a music office and a collective association in Malta.
Priorities identified include facilitating small-scale events whereby addressing organisational difficulties, identifying affordable on-street promotional spaces, identifying possible dedicated music venues, suitable infrastructure in existing venues, rehearsal spaces for both amateurs and professionals including Church or band clubs, championing environmental sustainability initiatives, collaborate with the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) to establish a music tourism strategy, collaborate with pertinent stakeholders to draft a master plan / strategy for the music and NTE sector, support artists to access public, private and international funding, lobby with government to address areas of its competence including achieving coordinated and well communicated infrastructural projects and public events as well as ensuring a legal / financial level playing field and completing sound regulations, support artists in developing skills including financial and legal, and/or gaining eased access to them, support professionalisation of artist managers, support the development of a musicians union to protect artists’ value, support adherence to industry associations, support local collaboration, support adherence to international networks, and develop a music export office branch.
ACM is advocating for clarity in regulating NTE, better enforcement, mapping exercises, the application of agent of change principle and soundproofing in relation to venues that are located inside residential areas and neighbourhoods, closer collaboration with local and tourism business community, closer collaboration with residential and music community (musicians, service providers, audiences) in order to enhance the quality offer aimed at improving visitor satisfaction, in line with sustainable development guidelines set out by the tourism strategy for Malta. Links to the Maltese festa being recognised as UNESCO intangible heritage and the local musical traditions, including band clubs, may be sought.
ACM provided feedback to the Valletta Management Plan (VMP) consultation in 2024, calling for the VMP to address the music and NTE scene in the capital city. The feedback addresses the 5Cs, namely credibility, conservation, capacity building, communication and communities identified by UNESCO as principles to help guide the sustainable management of World Heritage Sites with an eye to establishing good practices and preserving sites for future generations. Special reference is made to capacity building and communities.
While the music element, together with other related aspects of cultural expression, is referred to indirectly by the VMP as part of the intangible heritage of the city as well as an attraction for visitors, its management on the basis of local traditional good practice and international best practice should be acknowledged and implemented.
The main observations are listed below:
- Reference to existing legal frameworks and related subsidiary legislation regulating sound should be made
Current situation
Subsidiary Legislation 441.07 establishes trading licence regulations in Malta, and states that no commercial activity located in an urban area is permitted to play live or amplified music or cause disturbance to neighbours between the hours of 11.00 p.m. and 9.00 a.m., and between 1.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m. The legal notice 161 of 2022 is an addition to the Subsidiary Legislation 441 and provides an extension of business hours. It extends the playing of music in commercial premises from 11.00 p.m. to 1.00 a.m. on some streets of Valletta (including Merchants Street, Old Bakery Street, Old Theatre Street, Republic Street, South Street, St. Lucia Street and Strait Street). The legal notice indicates that the volume of such music must be kept at a moderate level, without including any concrete sound levels, and that no music can be played outdoors after 1.00 a.m. Legal notice 163 of 2022 then added Archbishop Street and St. Ursola Street to the list.
MTA issues permits to allow catering establishments to play amplified music. Although the licensing process for catering establishments permitted to play amplified music is detailed and accessible, it does not include maximum sound levels and no authorisation of this type could be found for other establishments such as concert venues in Malta.
- Greater clarity to be established regarding event permitting and organisation recommended.
Current situation
Valletta attracts public and private events, as well as religious and community ones, and thrives off its renewed revived character. However, greater clarity, and ensuing coordinating, in the permitting and organisation of events, is recommended. The aim is to improve the quality of the events and satisfy the needs of the various communities that inhabit or visit Valletta. Although several legal documents provide information about entertainment events in Malta, the regulations are incomplete. Malta lacks an exhaustive and accessible regulations guide including all types of events licences, their requirements, hours of operation and fees. In addition, the stakeholder engagement conducted to establish Malta’s National Cultural Policy 2021 also highlighted that private promoters struggle to access venues and spaces during the Summer months to organise events, and that the calendar of events run by the government and nonprofits compete against each other, which reduces the opportunities for private promoters to promote music events.
- Agent of Change Principle to be introduced
Consider introducing the Agent of Change policy to allow existing venues to maintain their average dB(A) (when established) regardless of any new builds, repurposed spaces or developments. The Agent of Change principle places the responsibility for mitigating the impact of sound-generating activity on the person or business responsible for the change. Implementing such a principle, along with establishing clearer sound regulations, would help address several issues and concerns associated with night time sound, as well as protect existing venues from new residential developments, and ensure that new venues are built with soundproofing in mind – all of which will ultimately protect the music and NTE in the long term.
Comments are closed.