While businesses big and small struggled through the disruptions caused by COVID, Rita Vella’s believes that it is now even more important for businesses to work together and help each other, where possible.

She was speaking on today’s episode of The Boardroom, which focused on the issues faced by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Ms Vella is the owner of Diveshack, a popular local diving school. While tourism and the economy opened up fully this month, the uncertainty of how the situation will progress until very recently prevented many tourists from booking their holidays to Malta. This left diving schools like Ms Vella’s hard done by.

Agreeing with fellow panel members, Ms Vella wholeheartedly believes in players of a particular sector coming together to discuss issues they are collectively facing. She goes a step further, and questions why businesses should not pool resources – whenever the situation calls for it.

“For example, if we do not have enough divers to fill up a boat, why not approach a fellow diving school to see if it makes sense to rent a boat jointly. In this way, as a business owner, you are ensuring that your costs are reduced without any disruptions to the service you are providing”.

Ms Vella’s story is particular - she had entered retirement pre-COVID as plans were in place for the business to be sold. Due to the evolving COVID situation overseas, the sale was cancelled on 29th February, causing her to come out of retirement.

The diving sector as a whole, she stresses, is important to Malta’s economy, adding that eight per cent of the island’s inbound tourists visit specifically for diving. In addition, many tourists who had not planned to take up diving are enticed to do so while visiting Malta.

She goes on to highlight that for every €100 a tourist spends on diving, they spend at least four times the amount on accommodation, food and general spending during their time in Malta.

“We only get a small piece of the pie but we contribute to the overall economy,” she says.

Like other business owners, Ms Vella used the involuntary down-time to improve the digital presence of her business, while also updating and modernising operational processes.