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From The Malta Independent June 11, 2001
Gozitan tells readers how to hurt Malta's tourism
Staff Reporter
"When you pass a tourist/travel agency and you have a minute to spare, pop in and ask for 'all
your brochures on travel and tourism in Malta' ".
"Advertising is a major overhead in the tourism business.
It costs. Once you have a good bagful, take them to the recycling."
"Each time you pass a travel agency
go in and ask for some more, week-in, week-out."
"When they wont give you any more, send your wife/husband/
kids."
"Ask them (the Maltese tourist authority) to send a really lovely big pack of info to you, your
friends, your mum and aunties, wherever they may be it's what Hotmail, Yahoo and the other e-mail addresses are for.... and
recycle it."
"One-off glossy brochures are very expensive to produce and youll be depriving other potential
visitors to Malta of the possibility to see the material."
This is the advice that David Camilleri is giving
out on the Internet to potential visitors to Malta.
Mr Camilleri, who hails from Gozo, attained notoriety last year
when he set up a cage with himself in it, symbolising the plight of the caged birds in Malta. This form of art-work was later
exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts.
Mr Camilleri is now taking his fight further afield: he has now become
rabidly anti-Malta; or at least anti-Maltese government.
The Federation of Hunting and Conservation, Malta, which
drew the attention of bodies and organisations in Malta to what is appearing on Mr Camilleri's website, quotes him as giving
the reason for his anti-Malta stance:
"An interesting idea [came] from Italy!! I sat back and tried to think
of a way that a group of thousands of people could hit back hard at the Maltese government and it came to mind..."
"I'll probably get some flak for this suggestion, but if it begins to spread and bite you can be sure of a legislative
reaction on the part of the Maltese."
"Please forward this message to sympathetic groups and individuals
and do your part."
"Malta is small (400,000 people... not Spain or Turkey) and more than 10% of the total
population is employed in tourism-related activities."
"Every trashed brochure is a little victory, a little
nudge to the legislators and law-enforcement agency that the political support enjoyed by the hunters doesn't pay the bills."
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