Tourism in coastal resorts and historic areas : with a focus on Malta’s tourism

Abstract

The publication is a record of the verbal presentations made during the webinar held in January 2021. They provide some very useful and interesting insights on many topics that are debated in tourism academic literature. There were nine presentations from academics and practitioners. To note in particular: (1) Prof. Andrew Smith makes a case for of UK’s seaside resorts to be developed as centres of wellbeing, considering the health benefits to people, mental health in particular, when visiting blue spaces. He also makes some reflections on Malta’s coastal resorts. (2) Leslie Vella from the Malta Tourism Authority focuses on Malta’s ‘dual nature destination’. During the peak, Malta is an island with a city, with tourists coming for the coast while engaging in urban tourism activities. In the off-peak Malta becomes a city on an island, with people engaging in cultural and urban activities, with the marine environment acting as a backdrop. He also expresses concern that climate change will have a profound effect on Malta’s receptive capacity for sun and sea tourism. (3) Prof. Alex Torpiano talks about the impacts of tourism on historic areas and also on their residents. With a growing trend of cities to open the relatively unfamiliar historic areas to tourism, more needs to be done to mitigate the negative impacts to avoid losing the very characteristics that make these areas so interesting to tourists.