Malta Tourism Awards Return: MTA Launches Second Edition to Celebrate Local Heroes

**MTA Launches Second Edition of Malta Tourism Awards: Celebrating the Islanders Who Welcome the World**

Valletta’s Grandmaster’s Palace buzzed with more than the usual tourist chatter yesterday as the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) unveiled the second edition of the Malta Tourism Awards, an initiative that locals are already calling “the Oscars of the hospitable island.” Against a backdrop of gilded armour and 18th-century frescoes, Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo promised that this year’s ceremony—slated for 14 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre—will “put Maltese faces, not just postcards, at the centre of our national story.”

The first edition, held in 2022, was born in the shadow of COVID-19 as a morale booster for an industry that employs one in four Maltese workers. This time the stakes are higher: arrivals have smashed pre-pandemic records, cruise liners are jostling for Valletta wharf space, and Gozo’s farmhouses are booked solid until November. Yet MTA CEO Carlo Micallef insists the awards are not a pat on the back for surviving—they are a compass for thriving. “We want to reward the farmer in Xagħra who opens his olive grove at sunrise, the Qormi baker who teaches tourists ftira folding, the Għarb grandmother who lists her spare room on Airbnb and still leaves ħobż biż-żejt on the dresser,” Micallef told reporters.

Categories mirror the archipelago’s eclectic offer: from “Best Authentic Experience” and “Eco-Innovator of the Year” to “Community Champion,” a nod to villages that turn festa fireworks into sustainable, plastic-free spectacles. A new “Regeneration Award” will recognise hotels that retrofit centuries-old townhouses rather than bulldoze them, a practice that has saved entire streets in Birgu and Senglea from becoming hollow museum pieces. Entries open next Monday and close on 15 September; judging panels will include hotel-school students, heritage NGOs, and—crucially—tourists themselves, who can nominate via a QR code slipped into every MTA brochure.

For many islanders, the awards are personal. Nadine Camilleri, 29, runs kayak tours through the sea caves of Comino. Last winter she replaced single-use plastic bottles with stainless-steel canteens branded “Keep Malta Blue.” Business dipped 15 % at first. “Some customers laughed, calling me the ‘plastic police,’” she recalls. But by April, influencers posted her turquoise canteens on Instagram and bookings doubled. “If I win, my village football club gets new floodlights—tourism giving back to the pitch where I scored my first goal.”

The cultural significance runs deeper than marketing. Anthropologist Dr. Maria Pace, who sits on the judging panel, argues the awards are quietly rewriting the Maltese success narrative. “For decades we equated tourism with sun, sea and cheap beer. These prizes celebrate the intangible—storytelling, scent of wild fennel on coastal paths, the Maltese language butchered and lovingly corrected.” Pace points to last year’s winner, the Palazzo Falson historic house museum in Mdina, which beat five-star resorts by training local teenagers as costumed interpreters. Visitor dwell time jumped 40 %, and secondary-school history passes rose in the same cohort.

Sustainability benchmarks are stringent. Applicants must submit waste-audit spreadsheets, gender-pay-gap ratios, and proof that 30 % of suppliers come from within a 25-kilometre radius. “We’re essentially asking businesses to prove they love their own village more than their profit margin,” quipped Aaron Briffa, president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, only half-joking.

The winner of the coveted “People’s Choice” receives a €50,000 marketing package—€20,000 cash plus €30,000 in MTA co-funded campaigns targeting Germany, France, and the burgeoning Polish market. But perhaps the real prize is the story. Clips of finalists will be aired on Ryanair flights landing at Luqa, turning returning residents into unexpected ambassadors.

As the press conference wrapped up, a troop of żejtunijja folk dancers burst into the courtyard, bells jingling like scattered coins. Tourists filming on phones were gently nudged aside so an 80-year-old widow could take the front row—her grandson nominated for converting the family’s derelict Siġġiewi olive press into an agritourism lab. In that moment, the message was clear: Malta is not just selling holidays; it is inviting the world to witness its living, breathing village tapestry. And this November, the tapestry will applaud back.