Philip Fenech calls out ‘copycats’: ‘They put entire tourism industry at risk’

Tourism stalwart Philip Fenech has called out “copycat investors” that “dilute” the work of others.

“Replicating existing ideas in an already crowded space is not only a risk to the individual investor, but to the industry at large,” he wrote in an opinion piece published on MaltaCEOs.mt‘s sister site BusinessNow.mt on Tuesday.

While acknowledging Malta’s strong economic performance over the past decade, Mr Fenech warned that the country’s tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors are now at a crossroads, with investment patterns increasingly split between visionary operators and copycat concepts.

According to Mr Fenech, a cohort of diligent investors has played a central role in elevating Malta’s tourism product by investing in high-quality offerings aligned with international trends. Their approach, he noted, is “rooted in operational intelligence” and has helped drive “the encouraging increase we are seeing in spend-per-capita”.

However, he cautioned that this progress risks being undermined by a growing number of copycat investments entering an already saturated market.

“There is a distressing amount of investment in copycat concepts,” Mr Fenech wrote, warning that such replication “risks a price war that could erode margins for everyone, threatening the very standards that attract high-spending visitors”.

Mr Fenech stressed that the danger is not linked to weak demand, but rather to the volume of supply currently in development. With a significant pipeline of new projects coming online, he argued that Malta must remain mindful of its carrying capacity.

“We must be careful that this ‘copycat syndrome’ does not dilute or damage the efforts of our visionary investors who have worked hard to elevate our national product,” he wrote.

Looking ahead, Mr Fenech said Malta’s continued success depends on a shift in mindset – away from growth for its own sake and towards a more measured, quality-driven approach.

“For the Maltese economy to remain healthy, we must transition from a mindset of ‘more’ to a mindset of ‘better’,” he wrote, concluding that sustainable success lies in protecting quality, not multiplying redundancy.