2011 saw a dip in the Maltese EFL market due to various reasons which shall be discussed in the following paragraphs. One would ask, "How could this lead to something positive?"  Well, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and what happened was that the drop in numbers from central European countries encouraged school owners to start exploring different territories.

This means that by the end of 2011 many language schools on this little Mediterranean island had sealed deals with language travel agents from various emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, Turkey and Colombia.

Unfortunately, 2011 hit Maltese language schools quite hard due to various reasons ranging from the recession to the crisis in Libya, and to top it all off the decrease in grants to study in Malta given to EFL students by the government in Spain.

Despite this, FELTOM president Alex Fenech, claims that 2012 is going to be a good year mainly due to the fact that students from South American countries who go abroad to study English generally do so for a longer period of time than the average European student. This, therefore, means that schools are probably going to strengthen their shoulder months.

Another issue he mentioned is that schools in Malta saw a marked improvement in obtaining visas for prospective students particularly in Turkey, with the opening of a consulate in Istanbul.

Finally, another plus is that in 2012 various airlines (most of them low cost) are going to start flying to Malta from different destinations.