Malta Tourism Authority appoints Tolene Van der Merwe as new Director for UK and Ireland

The Malta Tourism Authority is delighted to announce the appointment of Tolene Van der Merwe as the tourism board’s new UK and Ireland Director.

Tolene’s new role will focus on leading a London based team to further develop and cultivate partnerships with tour operators, airlines, travel agents and niche specialists as well reaching out to the UK public with PR and marketing initiatives to keep Malta and Gozo on top of mind and holiday destinations of choice for the UK public. Accounting for a quarter of Malta’s tourism arrivals, the UK market is the largest for the destination and Tolene and her team will continue to grow arrival numbers through diversification of on island experiences and strategies.

Tolene began her career in the tourism industry at Exclusive Getaways, the luxury South African operator. Tolene later joined London based tour operator African Affair Travel furthering her specialism in African tourism product before founding Boutique Travel Marketing, where she spent seven years growing the hotel representation company. Tolene joins the Malta Tourism Authority following five years as the Hub Head for South African Tourism for UK and Ireland.

Tolene commented “I’m thrilled to be a part of the Malta Tourism Authority’s UK team. The archipelago has had a fantastic boost in its tourism in the past few years and is now considered to be one of Europe’s hottest destinations for history and culture, LGBT+, gastronomy, diving, and soft adventure travel. With attentions now turning to wellness, city breaks and sustainability, I’m excited to be part of the tourism authority’s increasing success in drawing a variety of travellers to experience all that the islands have to offer”.

Latest numbers show that Malta is on par to match UK visitor arrival figures recorded in 2018.

Commenting on this appointment, MTA’s CMO & Deputy CEO Carlo Micallef said that “MTA is delighted to have secured the services of Tolene van der Merwe to join a strong highly professional team in London and continue building on the success achieved under Peter Vella’s stewardship in the past 4 years. Malta’s tourism industry continues to enjoy record performances year on year and MTA together with Ministry for Tourism have a strategy of further market diversification, route connection development, tourism product enhancement as well as Malta brand identity growth to ensure that the success continues.”

MEDIA CONTACTS: Lauren Williams, Emily Olsen or Georgia Gogarty at malta@finnpartners.com or 020 7326 9880