Up to €10,000 to be given to restaurants to bring foreign chefs to improve their outlets

Restaurants will be able to receive up to €10,000 in tax credit for them to bring renowned chefs from abroad, for a minimum of ten days, to improve their menus and train their staff.

The initiative, which is being started by Malta Enterprise with the support of the the Institute of Tourism Studies, was announced at a press conference by tourism minister Konrad Mizzi and economy minister Chris Cardona, and is aimed at bettering Malta’s gastronomical product.

Mizzi said that tourism in Malta had increased in recent years, and the initiative would enable eateries to cater for the increased demand by offering a better product.

The foreign chefs would be actively working in the restaurants’ kitchen, giving other chefs training, and helping the restaurants put higher quality dishes on their menus, he explained.

Cardona said that the tax credits given would cover a large percentage of what the restaurants would have to pay to bring the chef in question over.

Tourism constitutes almost 30% of Malta’s Gross Domestic Product, Cardona maintained, and it was therefore necessary to keep searching for ways of improving what the island could offer to tourists.

One in every six jobs in Malta was generated by the tourist sector, he emphasised, which is why training for those working in the area was essential, and such training had to reflect the industry’s needs.

Through the initiative, those in the hospitality business would be given the resources they needed to ameliorate what they offers to their customers, he said.

Malta Enterprise will be vetting the choice of foreign chefs to ensure that they would able to give added value to Malta.