NEWS | Wednesday, 04 June 2008

De Cesare speaks out in favour of golf course development

Further to his appointment as President of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) last week, leisure industry tycoon Kevin De Cesare is adamant on pushing government to decide on the prospective development of golf courses.
In his first interview since his new appointment, featured on today’s edition of Business Today (see pages 10 and 11), De Cesare emphasised: “Both parties have agreed on golf courses being needed and, as much as I am aware of environmentalists being against it, I think golf courses are very important for tourism,” while also recommending government to take a decision “now that this (discussion on golf courses) has been going on for 14 years.”
Explaining why he feels Malta is in dire need of such development, De Cesare said: “The Marsa golf course is completely full and high-spending tourists wanting to come to Malta to play golf are finding it impossible to find availability to play. If you fly over specifically to play golf you can’t have just one course. You will need at least two or possibly three courses.”
On the idea of the development of stand-alone golf courses, whereon other than the course per se, no other commercial development takes place on the land, he said: “I don’t agree with allowing huge development to take place on golf courses but I also think you can’t have a course without some development – it just wouldn’t be commercially viable. I don’t believe such courses are at all possible – and this is not necessarily the MHRA’s opinion but my personal one.”
On second thoughts, De Cesare noted that stand-alones may after all prove feasible if government invests directly into their development, allowing the private sector to rent out the land at a justified yearly rate.
“I would ask government to invest in the development of golf courses itself, in order not to create over-development, and then get the private sector involved in its running. In that case the government could rent out the course to interested parties at say Lm50,000 or Lm100,000 per year, and everyone is happy,” he commented.
Asked about his plans on dealing with the environmental lobby, he said: “I’ve always found it very difficult to look at golf courses as environmentally ugly. Have you ever passed a golf course and thought of it being ugly? On the contrary, I would say how lovely it looks because of its lush green grass…
“If the government accepts setting up a golf course in a specific area with a simple club house and no other development on it, that in itself would be a guarantee that the area will not be over-developed, and hopefully that would create a compromise with environmentalists.
“I think there is space in Pembroke and Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq. There was Magħtab mentioned too but now there are other plans for the area. There were also applications for Rabat, and I’m not referring to Verdala. They were also trying to set one up in Gozo. What I’m saying is… let’s start with one golf course and we’ll see how it goes. Pembroke is a good site – it’s not like too many people go there for recreation anyway.”