A pub on a stunning European island country is urging Brits feeling alienated by anti-tourism protests to visit, declaring: “The more we have, the better for us!”
Last year, large scale demonstrations erupted against overtourism in various parts of Europe. In Spain, huge protests filled the streets in major cities like Barcelona, where irate locals were seen spraying tourists with water pistols.
Residents in various parts of Spain, particularly holiday hotspots like Tenerife and Majorca, link the presence of large numbers of tourists and holiday lets with rising living costs. Some Brits have vowed to look elsewhere for their holidays amid crackdowns on overtourism by local councils.
The manager of a pub in Malta, a sunswept island in Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast is now urging Britons to consider the country instead.
Marisa Farrugia, who runs the Red Lion Pub in St Paul’s Bay told MailOnline: “We get a lot of British tourists in here,” adding: “The more we have, the better for us!”
“I think tourists feel more welcomed in Malta, the locals are more friendly here,” she continued. “If they’re not welcome elsewhere because of anti-tourism, hopefully people will come here more.”
She quipped that the popular boozer is the first port for thirsty punters after they leave the airport.
Saint Paul’s Bay is popular tourist town on northeast coast of Malta in the Northern Region, with a population of around 38,000.
Like Spain’s famous resorts, it attracts a lot of British tourists, but Ms Farrugia says the town relies on foreigners visiting.
“I don’t think we have any anti-tourism feelings here. People rely on tourism here a lot,” she told the outlet.
She recalled that after the Covid pandemic brought the closure of the airport, “it was literally like a ghost town” for years.
“There was nothing, we had nothing, without the tourists we had nothing”, she said, adding that the business foreigners bring is “very important for us”.
The island country saw more tourists than ever before last year, a total of 3.56 million, Malta Tourism Authority CEO Carlo Micallef revealed in February.
The figure represented an increase of a fifth compared to 2023, Mr Micallef said, as per The Times of Malta.
He said much of the growth they had seen came “during the winter months”.
The peak summer months saw tourism shoot up by 17% while the off season saw a 26% surge, the outlet reported.