Malta's Marine Tourism Operators Unite Behind Responsible Dolphin Tourism

A coalition of 29 organisations, spanning NGOs, dive operators and marine businesses, has issued a joint statement calling for stronger protection of Malta's resident dolphin population, in a move that highlights how responsible wildlife tourism is becoming a shared commercial priority across the island's marine sector.

The initiative is led by Patrizia Patti, marine biologist and founder of EcoMarine Malta, whose tourism operation has spent nearly a decade combining boat tours with dolphin research. Patti argues that Malta's tourism operators have a direct commercial stake in getting this right: with visible wildlife relatively scarce around the island, the dolphins and turtles that do appear have become a significant draw for marine tour businesses, making their long-term presence, and the way encounters are managed, central to the sector's future.

Backing the statement is a body of original data. Between late 2023 and 2025, EcoMarine Malta ran a passive acoustic monitoring project that recorded 1,200 hours of dolphin vocalisations, combined with nine years of photo-identification data gathered during commercial tours. The findings identified a consistent hotspot for dolphin activity, evidence now underpinning one of the coalition's key asks: a mandatory vessel speed limit in the zone to reduce collision risk and underwater noise.

For operators, the commercial logic and the conservation case increasingly align. Patti described how EcoMarine Malta trains passengers to observe dolphins without approaching them directly, an approach that, in practice, tends to result in animals approaching the boat voluntarily, arguably a stronger product for tour operators than a chase ever could be.

The coalition has also proposed a formal public reporting system for boat behaviour around marine wildlife, with escalating warnings ahead of any fines, and has held renewed engagement with Malta's Environment and Resources Authority following the statement's release.