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MALTESE RESPONSES to TOURISM Bill Bramwell Sheffield Hallam University, UK

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MALTESE RESPONSES to TOURISM Bill Bramwell Sheffield Hallam University, UK Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 581–605, 2003 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures 0160-7383/03/$30.00 doi:10.1016/S0160-7383(03)00023-9 MALTESE RESPONSES TO TOURISM Bill Bramwell Sheffield Hallam University, UK Abstract: This study of residents’ responses to tourism in the Maltese islands adopts a contextual rather than tourism-centric approach, with responses related to the sociocultural and political setting as well as to tourism development. Scattered published sources are brought together and analyzed to develop a new research agenda. Several forms of response among the Maltese are examined, including attitudes to tourism’s general and specific impacts, and protest action against its schemes. The study shows that after the mid-80s some people’s views about the industry became more negative. Consideration is given to likely influences on the continuities and changes in responses since the 60s. Keywords: Malta, contextual study, community attitudes, environmental groups, environmental policies. 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Re´sume´: La re´ponse maltaise au tourisme. Cette e´tude des re´ponses des habitants au tour- isme a` l’archipel de Malte adopte une approche contextuelle plutoˆt que centre´e sur le tour- isme, avec des re´ponses lie´es aux cadres socioculturel et politique aussi bien qu’au de´veloppe- ment du tourisme. On rassemble et analyse diverses publications pour de´velopper un nouveau programme de recherches. On examine plusieurs sortes de re´ponses pa les Maltais, y compris leurs attitudes envers les impacts ge´ne´raux et spe´cifiques du tourisme et leurs actes de protestation contre ses projets. L’e´tude montre que l’opinion publique au sujet du tourisme est devenue plus ne´gative a` la fin des anne´es 80. On tient compte des influences probables sur les continuite´s et les changements dans les re´ponses depuis les anne´es 60. Mots- cle´s: Malte, e´tude contextuelle, attitudes de la communaute´, groups e´cologistes, politiques e´cologistes. 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION Too much research is carried out within a tourism-centric and de- contextualized theoretical paradigm. Hence, this paper seeks to dem- onstrate the merits of adopting a contextual approach to the study of community responses to tourism. The case is made by undertaking a critical synthesis of research on the reactions to the industry among residents of the Maltese islands. The analysis evaluates how broad soci- oeconomic, cultural, and political processes in Malta have influenced, and have also been affected by, these responses. Tourism is examined as only one of many influences. Historical continuities and changes in responses are considered since the advent of mass tourism in the Bill Bramwell is Reader at Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield S1 1WB, UK. Email <[email protected]>). He has edited books on aspects of tourism and rural develop- ment, partnerships, and sustainability in Europe. Presently he is working on a book on South- ern European tourism. He co-founded and co-edits the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.His research interests include relations between tourism and growth management, local com- munities, and discourses of sustainability. 581 582 RESPONSES TO TOURISM islands in the 60s. Within this overall setting, there is examination of several different forms of responses among the residents. First, there is consideration of their attitudes to the industry’s overall and specific impacts. Second, attention is paid to public concern and protest about environmental issues partly affected by tourism. Lastly, there is dis- cussion of the development of related environmental policies and regulations, and of how the population has responded to them. Based on this analysis, suggestions are made for a new agenda of questions to consider in future research on reactions to the industry in Malta. The microstate of Malta is 100 km south of Italy in the central Medit- erranean. Tourism’s rapid growth on these tiny islands means that it has had substantial impacts. This analysis of Maltese responses to tour- ism relies on secondary published sources, drawing together and inter- rogating previous sociological and anthropological studies by native and overseas researchers as well as surveys by national public agencies. The use of these sources illustrates how previously published, scattered information can have considerable relevance for research on this theme. It is shown that such material may be evaluated using a more holistic approach in order to ask new questions and to reinterpret pre- vious findings. The resulting new research agenda might not have emerged if already published material had been neglected and if the analysis had applied tourism-centric perspectives without sensitivity to the wider setting. RESPONSES TO TOURISM Some studies of local responses to tourism examine them largely in relation to the area’s progress through an assumed development cycle (Allan, Long, Perdue and Kieselbach 1988; Smith and Krannich 1998). They reflect Doxey’s (1975) suggestion that as the industry increases, residents’ reactions become steadily more negative, moving from euphoria to apathy, annoyance, and then antagonism. This idea has been extended by other researchers, notably Butler (1980) who pro- poses a resort cycle moving through five stages of discovery, involve- ment, development and consolidation, decline, and rejuvenation or stabilization, depending on attempts to ameliorate the adverse impacts. It is proposed that rising number of tourists and their changing types over the cycle can increase negative resident perceptions. While Butler recognizes the influence of other factors, some researchers apply this model without giving detailed attention to socioeconomic, cultural, and political influences on local attitudes. For example, Ioannides uses the model, together with “the experiences of various Mediterranean insular regions”, to develop a “conceptual framework for examining the agendas of various stakeholder groups at each stage of a resort’s development”. This longitudinal framework is premised on the notion that stakeholder attitudes to tourism and sustainable development may shift according to a destination’s development stage. Hence, when mass tourism has set in, such as on the Greek island of Cephalonia, local reaction to its development is mixed: BILL BRAMWELL 583 Although the local residents begin to recognize certain social and environmental problems, they are also willing to put up with tourism in its current mass-market form because of the real and perceived benefits it may provide. Only certain NGOs, including “fringe” environmental activists, oppose future development (2001:64, 69–70). This industry-focused model is useful heuristically to prompt thought about tourism’s effects on attitudes, but it could distort interpretations if attention is not also paid to other influences (Horn and Simmons 2002:142). Yet the model’s longitudinal character encourages con- sideration of temporal changes in localities rather than describing them as frozen in time. Community responses to tourism are best understood when exam- ined in relation to the varied relationships affecting them. Research abstracting responses from their context and history may lose a fuller understanding of processes and meanings, and this can lead to misin- terpretation. Examinations of responses in a local context should avoid retreating to the unique. There are reflexive and recursive intersec- tions between localized influences and more general and even global forces, including capital accumulation, commodification, and con- sumerism (Britton 1991; Milne 1998). As Harvey put it: “universality must be constructed in dialectic relation with particularity” (1996:362). In her study of the Greek island of Mykonos, Stott argues that the “history, social organization and cultural principles of a society will determine the flexibility or inflexibility in response to or development of the tourist industry” (1979:89). The contours of such responses will be understood better when related to how residents actively construct their identities in relation to global forces. As Black concludes from a study of tourism in Malta, local cultures should not be viewed as lacking an internal dynamic and become blank screens upon which to project ideas about a “lost past” and to reflect upon the social ills of the developed world. In the meantime, the voices of the people upon which all these ills are supposedly working often remain com- pletely absent (1996:116; 1990). Southern European Context Holistic insights can be furthered by considering local situations in their regional context. Southern European countries are characterized by some similarities, but also by marked diversity. While they have gen- erally modernized more slowly than in Northern Europe, in recent decades change has been rapid; “changes over a few generations while in Continental Europe the changes evolved over centuries” (Sapelli 1995:13). One notable development has been the rise of consumerism (Pridham 1994:81). Despite rapid recent change in these societies, reli- gion, the family, and certain traditional values often remain as key features. Since the 50s and 60s, parts of Southern Europe’s littoral have developed as a mass tourism “pleasure periphery” for Northern Europeans. This form of tourism has often evolved historically through a dash for quick money to solve economic problems or ambitions,
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