THE HON. MICHAEL REFALO, MINISTER FOR TOURISM, WELCOMES THE PRESENTERS OF RETE QUATTRO?S ?MELAVERDE?, THE ITALIAN TV PROGRAMME TO BE FILMED AND TRANSMITTED FROM MALTA

2000 has been a year during which the Malta Tourism Authority and MTA's Tourist Office in Milan, spearheaded by Director Robert Zammit, spared no effort to make Malta and Gozo better known to potential visitors from Italy and neighbouring Sicily.

Tourism Minister Michael Refalo hosted a press conference to launch the filming and production of a programme in Mediaset's Melaverde series and announced that the Authority had again been successful in attracting the interest of the producers of yet another Italian TV programme to Malta.

Melaverde is the fourth Italian TV programme to be filmed in Malta during 2000.

The Minister welcomed Gabriella Carlucci and Edoardo Raspelli, the programme's hosts, and confided that when he had been informed that filming would be done during December his mind went back to the many occasions that Malta had lost out on great PR occasions because of inclement weather. "For most of the year we enjoy wonderful weather but when it comes to filming TV programmes we seem to have an uncanny habit of choosing a date and time which coincide with those when some solitary cloud chooses to burst over Malta! I hope that not withstanding overcast skies Ms. Carlucci, Mr. Rastelli and the Melaverde team have beaten the jinx."

The Minister said that the Malta episode would be screened on the last Sunday in December. "I do not think that I need to explain what Melaverde is all about since the programme has its own audience in Malta. However some statistics about its following in Italy are worth highlighting.

Melaverde is watched by 1.3 to 1.5 million viewers and despite strong competition from other Italian TV programmes transmitted at the same time, regularly registers an 8 - 9.5% audience count, which means that the number of viewers who every Sunday lunchtime switch on to the programme for at least three minutes totals 4.3 to 4.5 million."

"Lunchtime at Palio's is also Pizza time and it is my pleasure to invite the press to join us for lunch to promote and support Starwood's UNICEF "Give Me 5" fund raising campaign."

The Minister invited the Mediaset team to elaborate on the programme content and style, and concluded that at the final count 2000, although a difficult year for Malta's tourism, should show that "we have more than held our own in the Italian market. All the promotion and publicity which Malta and MTA have invested in Italy during this year should result in improved results during 2001 and partly set off probable losses from other main markets."