The Roman Heritage in the South Eastern parts of Malta – Management and Marketing Issues

This paper focuses on the Roman Heritage sites in the South Eastern parts of Malta and their potential for visitors as well as challenges to their management and marketing.

Despite the vast and rich heritage in Roman and Punic remains that this region possess there is very little knowledge of their existence and their potential for visitors. This paper will look at these sites and analyse each in turn as to their potential for becoming a visitor attraction.  By using statistics on visitors to other Roman Sites located in other parts of the Maltese Islands and other archaeological sites in the region, this paper concludes that if opened to the public, these sites can attract a number of visitors as well as they would add to the cultural offer to visitors to the South East parts of Malta. The paper goes on to discuss management and marketing problems that such sites currently face and proposes a plan for action on how these sites can be managed in a sustainable manner to ensure their conservation and preservation as well as guarantee visitor satisfaction.

Dr Nadia Theuma

Dr Nadia Theuma holds a BA and MPhil in Anthropology and a PhD in Cultural Tourism. She has been a member of staff at the University of Malta for more than 14 years with teaching and research experiences in the area of tourism, culture and heritage. During the past 10 years she has held advisory posts with the Ministry for Tourism, the Ministry for Education, the Ministry for Resources and Competitiveness and Communications, the Malta Tourism Authority, Heritage Malta and Department of Trade in the area of Maltese crafts. She has assisted the Malta Tourism Authority in developing a cultural tourism policy and participated in the developing of the Brand Identity for Malta. She is also a consultant to Maltese entities and private companies on identity, image and product development. Current research interests of Dr. Theuma include heritage management and heritage interpretation, cultural identity and branding.