Robert Arrigo & Sons named FRAM's top agent

St Julian's, 03/01/06 - Robert Arrigo & Sons was named FRAM's top incoming agent for all destinations this French tour operator programmes. The award was based on feedback received from FRAM clients.

FRAM flies to Malta from five airports in winter and summer and has a permanent representation based here.

MTA appoints segment heads

Valletta, 02/01/06 - As part of its restructuring programme, the Malta Tourism Authority has appointed heads to run its new segmentation approach to marketing.

Joseph Galea - based in Frankfurt - has been appointed segment leader for the 'summer and winter sun leisure' niche; Suzanne Cassar Dimech leads the 'meetings, incentives, conference and events' segment team; Alexandra Abela and Naomi Attard head the 'English language learning' and the Gozo-based holidays' segment teams respectively; Dominic Micallef has been appointed segment leader for 'history and culture'; Carlo Micallef will be heading the 'growth and other markets' segment, whilst the 'sports tourism' segment will be run by Michael Piscopo, who remains in London.

The segment heads report to the authority's director of marketing and sales, Jeffrey Cutajar.

"This has been a completely transparent and extremely responsible exercise and I am fully confident of the capability of this team in achieving the targets set within each individual segment," says MTA executive chairman Romwald Lungaro-Mifsud.

"All segment leaders will now have their own team and will collectively pool their efforts and resources towards the promotion of the tourism industry of the Maltese islands, through a fully dedicated and segment-focused marketing effort."

The segment leaders will be working closely with the segment advisory groups, which will shortly be appointed from the industry to represent each segment.

Malta hotels among world's best

Mosta, 02/01/06 - Last year was not a bad one for Malta's hotel industry when it came to awards.

The Corinthia Palace Hotel was recognised as 'Malta's leading hotel' at the 12th edition of the World Travel Awards held at London's Royal Opera House. The Westin Dragonara Resort was named 'Malta's leading resort' whilst the four star Fortina Spa Resort was nominated 'Malta's leading spa resort'.

InterContinental hotels, represented locally by the five star InterContinental Malta, were nominated 'Europe's leading hotel brand' and 'world's leading hotel brand'.

The 2005 World Travel Awards were decided by a poll of 176,000 travel professionals in more than 140 countries, including 110,000 travel agents. Voting started in May of last year and ended in September. During this five-months period 3,500 different nominations competed, with more than two million individual voting decisions completed, returned and processed using an online voting form.