It ’ s all about quality
The Malta Tourism Authority Quality Assured ( QA ) seal is definitely gaining momentum and becoming a recognised brand associated with quality in tourism . Today , almost 150 businesses consisting of restaurants , visitor attractions and destination management companies ( DMCs ) located across the Maltese Islands , are QA certified .
The QA seal is a voluntary scheme which was first developed for DMCs and was later extended to include visitor attractions . More recently , in 2015 , the restaurant category was also added under the same quality mark . Today the majority of certified businesses are restaurants with over 100 spread across Malta and Gozo , covering anything from family friendly restaurants to fine dining cuisine . These include Maltese , Italian , French , Chinese , Indian , Lebanese and other cuisines specializing in fish , seafood , meats , pizza , pasta and many other types . The visitor attractions include heritage sites , house museums , factory tours , audio visual shows , specialized museums , fun parks and many more .
The aim of the QA seal is to encourage best practice and recognise those establishments that consistently deliver a quality product . Some examples of this include a better trained workforce and an emphasis on the local element . The criteria are updated regularly and by working with the industry , other national tourism organisations and looking into customer feedback , we constantly ensure that any changes to the scheme criteria are in line with current consumer trends .
All QA awarded businesses have undergone the necessary process of application , assessment and awarding . The assessment consists of a third party mystery guest visit for restaurants , an audit for DMCs and an announced visit for attractions . In each case , an independent monitoring committee takes the final decision based on the recommendations following assessment .
So if you are interested in eating out , want to visit one of our many attractions , or want to organize an event on the Maltese Islands we invite you to visit our website at www . qualityassuredmalta . com . Alternatively a printed annual guide with all the Quality Assured businesses is available at any of our eleven tourist information offices across the Maltese Islands .
HOSPITALITY MALTA Q1 | 2017
81