
We’re happy that we were awarded the diving destination award at Boot Dusseldorf 2005.
Divinginfo.mt is also happy that we were the first to break out the story in local media, a full 24 hours before any other local media reported it. In fact, we did flag it to a couple of local media houses after publishing our article on purpose for it to become better known and entice even locals to appreciate our marine environment.
But there’s a limit to how much you can hype up an award, especially if you’re following all the pressure we’ve been piling to improve the offering! We are showing hyped up posts by local media houses. Carrying the same comment from the Malta Tourism Authority’s CEO, in our mind all fingers point to some MTA press release and very happy go lucky news media which did not do their fact checking. And fact checking starts with looking at independent or source information, such as the awards issuer:
https://www.boot.com/en/Program/Awards/dive_award/The_winners_of_the_dive_award_2025
Anyone who reads it with a critical approach may note that the Maltese Islands won the “Diving Destination Award”, not the “Best Diving Destination in the World” as some of the media houses shown below reported.



The boot dive award was launched at boot 2023. The aim is to recognize the international diving industry for special activities. Every year, five awards are presented in the categories Personality, Destination, Innovation, Product and Climate. At boot 2025, the boot dive award will receive friendly support from BAUER Kompressoren.
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A renowned expert jury, consisting of the editors-in-chief of the diving media divemaster, PLONGEZ!, TAUCHEN, taucher.net, VDSTsporttaucher and WETNOTES, will select three nominees per category from the applications. The winners of the boot dive award powered by BAUER Kompressoren will be determined by public voting and the final verdict of the expert jury and honored at boot Düsseldorf 2025 on Friday, January 24, 2025.
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Destination:
Exceprts from the website at https://www.boot.com/en/Program/Awards/dive_award/The_winners_of_the_dive_award_2025
Like hardly any other watersport, diving is closely linked to the topic of travel. The DESTINATION category is therefore dedicated to tourist aspects. Divers set off all over the world to explore the wonders of the underwater world. In this category you can find destinations and tourist offers that are especially well adapted to divers. Destinations and regions as a whole as well as individual hotels, dive centers or liveaboards can apply.
So in a nutshell, one must apply, then selected as one of three nominees by the panel, and then a winner out of these three is selected.
Who were the other two applicants which were also selected as nominees? The Maldives, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, The Philippenes, Micronesia, The Azores, ? These are just a few other countries that come to mind for world-class diving (and we specify countries or archipelagos, not specific areas or resorts as Malta was mentioned for the archipelago as a whole).
No. The awards page names the other two nominees as being a diving resort in the Danish Baltic Sea, and a Wakatobi, a diving resort in Indonesia. Looking at their pages one can clearly see the big picture where the focus is on natural beauty, healthy conservation areas and quiet. They are both specific resorts.
Do you start feeling the jist of comparing apples with oranges? We have no information who were the other applicants, so we won’t speculate further if they applied or not – maybe we could ask boot but that’s beside the point here and to be honest, it’s beside the point we want to make.
Let’s make thingsclear again: We don’t want to detract from the fact that the Maltese Islands are a very great diving destination! Quite a lot of the rationales given for the award are perfectly legitimate and reasonable.
The Maltese archipelago is one of the best diving destinations in the Mediterranean. A mild climate, short distances to the diving spots and excellent underwater visibility make Malta, Gozo and Comino an ideal destination for divers of all levels of experience almost all year round.The underwater landscape around the islands fascinates with rocky bottoms, artificial reefs made of wrecks and a rich animal world: damselfish, octopus, rays and even dolphins or tuna can be found here. Historical wrecks, such as the 2,700-year-old Phoenician shipwreck, also offer an archaeological highlight. Projects such as the “Virtual Museum: Underwater Malta” also make these sites digitally accessible. Since 2019, the Cirkewwa Marine Park has been offering protected diving areas. There are more than 200 dive sites with caves, reefs and wrecks on the islands. Over 40 diving centers offer courses for beginners and advanced divers, from introductory diving to technical diving. Two decompression chambers ensure safety. The islands offer over 300 days of sunshine a year and water temperatures between 13 and 23 °C. The proximity to major European cities and direct flights from many German cities ensure excellent accessibility. With the Blue Flag award for clean beaches and an excellent price-performance ratio, Malta is a top address for divers.
Description of Malta from Boot Award page
We don’t want to sound like serial complainers, but for goodness’ sake, local media and especially the authorities need to get a grip that divers are not idiots. The local media is mainly targeted towards local consumers, some of whom happen to be divers themselves, even though many feel ignored and almost unwanted visitors at such sites when we argue that conservation areas, facilities, protection etc. are insufficiently maintained.
Many of them can start pointing at a lot of cracks in the above statements.
We’re not going to go in the issue of quantity of marine life. This is the Mediterranean Sea. Overfished, high population demand, naturally cannot sustain certain types of large quantities of marine mammals and their requirements.
But if we scratch below the surface we start noticing there is not even a sign indicating the location of the Ċirkewwa Marine Park! Signs on site that were dislodged over a year ago to give visual indication of the diving site underwater have not yet been fixed. Fencing destroyed in a storm in January 2024 is still not fixed. It took months just to replace the reserved parking signs. Two rooms lying unused next to the bathrooms which could be turned into the park’s site office/interpretation centre and emergency treatment room (instead of the hot concrete quays or parking tarmac in summer peak season) have become a saga that recently even the new Minister for Tourism acknowledged that MTA appears to be powerless to solve!
L-Onorevoli IVAN BARTOLO staqsa lill-Onorevoli IAN BORG (Deputat Prim Ministru u Ministru għall-Affarijiet Barranin u t-Turiżmu): Jista’ d-Deputat Prim Ministru u Ministru għall-Affarijiet Barranin u t-Turiżmu jgħid għaliex il-kmamar maġenb it-toilets fiċ-Ċirkewwa, li jistgħu jintużaw għall-faċilitajiet tal-ewwel għajnuna jew edukazzjoni għadhom magħluqin u moħlija? Jista’ jgħid ukoll x’attentati saru biex it-titlu tagħhom jgħaddi f’idejn il-park taċ-Ċirkewwa jew l-Awtorità tat-Turiżmu jekk dawn huma mogħtija b’titlu lill Gozo Channel li milli jidher m’għandhiex użu għalihom minn mindu tlesta t-terminal tal-passiġġieri taċ-Ċirkewwa tliet leġiżlaturi ilu?
Tweġiba: Ninforma lill-Onor. Interpellant li l-Awtoritá Maltija għat-Turiżmu ilha għaddejja għal numru ta’ snin b’diskussjonijiet ma’ Transport Malta – li huma il-propretarji tal-art, kif ukoll mal-Gozo Channel – li huwa l-operatur ta’ din iż-żona u għalhekk għandhom dritt fuq dawn il-kmamar imsemmija. L-Awtoritá Maltija għat-Turiżmu se tibqa’ taħdem sabiex jekk ikun possibli, dawn il-kmamar jaqaw taħt ir-responsabbilta’ taċ-Ċirkewwa Marine Park sabiex ikunu jistgħu jintużaw bħala faċilitajiet għall-Park.
PQ 23896 replied on 20/01/2025 from https://pq.gov.mt/PQWeb.nsf/7561f7daddf0609ac1257d1800311f18/c1257d2e0046dfa1c1258c060037d832!OpenDocument
Until the end of last summer, boats were constantly cruising within supposedly conservation area around wrecks, and a Minister up to early last year was still trying to defend the idea that boats should be allowed to fish in these tiny napkin size zones, lest it affects their livelihood! Had it not that the Occupational Health & Safety Authority threatened to stop diving centres’ from sending their staff to instruct or guide in the risk of getting hooked or hit by boats by banning diving at shore diving sites where boats were constantly passing fishing, the ban on fishing in nearshore diving sites might have never been implemented. The concrete kitting up benches at Ċirkewwa after ten years being there are disintegrating. The lighting fixtures there are mostly broken pillars of plastic.
These are just a few issues tied down to one site which is mentioned specifically in this award. We have plenty more examples and controversies that we have reported on in the past two years, and many dive sites issues that have been forwarded to authorities, many times with no replies or feedback. We have as well the famous Diving Masterplan 2022 which is still to see many of its deliverables to materialise and which we had to chase for months to get feedback for basic questions on the status of their implementation from the Malta Tourism Authority. We asked them weeks ago for basic information of a list of licensed dive centers to provide an updated one to our readers, something extremely basic as they regulate them, but we still haven’t heard back!
We recently drafted an opinion piece which was being polished for presenting to local media houses to try to bring awareness to challenges in the sector. In view of the overinflation of this award by boot however, we are going to publish it as is in the coming hours to collate several of these challenges in a one pager lest someone tries to get some of them sorted. We believe our opinion piece will sound very critical of the efforts that are being put in, however this is with the sole aim of making this archipelago a more deserving contender for a “Best Diving Destination in the World”.
As real divers however, not marketeers or people with a quasi (or real) political agenda, we do have to remark that this “Best” superlative is not deserving of anywhere.
Rather, so many countries have diving spots are amazingly beautiful, offer great visitor experiences and exhilarating marine life and attractions that a well-travelled and dedicated diver cannot outright pick one above all others. To make one site preferred over others a lot of work has to be put it so that more and better quality tourist divers make the effort to visit it and enjoy the experience. Don’t overpromise or overhype, as each overexpectant visitor may unravel the fluff in no time and it may soon backfire! We’ve seen it first hand happening, and divers won’t appreciate bullshit when it’s thrown in their faces!
Dear authorities, pull up your socks before the next peak season is in and put in the works a long term effective framework, which includes multiple stakeholders for everything that cannot be handled in the immediate!
Work to improve, deliver, and then let the happy local or visitor diver be your best marketing agent for a sustainable industry by sharing the nice experiences rather than disappointments! We can do much better!