On March 28, 1969, the Preluna, the tallest building in Malta reaching 13 storeys, opened its doors at a time when the Maltese tourism industry was still in its infancy.
GEORGE CINI talks to JOE PRECA, managing director of the Preluna Hotel, about some of the highlights of this successful venture.
First and foremost, this anniversary should be dedicated to my father who, through great sacrifice, courage and determination managed to bring to fruition his dream of a large beautiful hotel at a time when tourism simply did not exist. Unfortunately, he fell ill some nine months before the completion of the hotel. The most memorable moment of my life was when, after years of the building looking like a concrete shell high-riser, I took my father to Qui-Si-Sana to look across the stretch of water at the Preluna, which had then just been completed. The hotel looked like a shiny glass palace - his magnum opus, brand new. I said to my father: "That's the Preluna". Tears of joy just swelled up in his eyes. Once we opened the hotel my father was not involved in its operation. I told him, "You do not need to work or worry any more. You have done much more than your fair share".
My father was a businessman and a jeweller who was on the look-out for an opportunity to invest his skills as an entrepreneur. As a matter of fact, the Preluna started out as a block of flats, 14 storeys high. There was no regulation about heights at that time except that buildings could go as high as two-and-half times the width of the road opposite. My father's interest changed overnight when the government announced incentive schemes for the hotel industry, including the reimbursement of about 25 per cent of the cost of the building of a hotel and a 10-year tax holiday. Few Maltese, if any, had been in this line of business before so, through the advice of then Malta Tourist Board chairman John Pollacco, my father Joseph Senior contacted a company in Israel called Mlonot Ltd that operated hotels. In turn this company recommended architects and civil engineers who had just opened a round tower hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, although the contract with this management company eventually fizzled out. My father offered partnership to an old friend, Frank Scicluna, who had just returned from Hong Kong. In fact, the name Preluna is made up of the two surnames, Preca and Scicluna. The company is one of the oldest and was formed through the legal guidance of Dr J. J. Gatt, a top lawyer and father of Dr Austin Gatt.
Government incentives also led to the company buying a brand new block of flats next door which was demolished together with a number of other houses. This meant returning to the drawing board over and over again and it was at least another year before the final building permit was obtained. This in turn led to the building of another 120 rooms which, with all the changes and a quest for quality finishing, pushed up the cost of the hotel to Lm1.2 million (€2.8 million) from the Lm500,000 (€1,164,000) which was the original estimate. Financially, the company was under great stress even though it had the full backing of Sciclunas Bank. But this was an opportunity my father believed in whole-heartedly. In the meantime, a Norwegian company agreed to offer a loan of a quarter of a million Liri in return for furnishing the hotel with top-class Scandinavian furniture and equipment. This was to be paid back over a number of years.
My career in tourism commenced when Mlonot's chairman, Kurt Levi, offered my father the chance to send me, then 18 years old, to spend a year in a Baron Rothschild hotel which had opened in Caesarea, Israel. I felt the hotel business was tailor-made for me since I enjoyed the adventure inherent in travelling and meeting people from different walks of life. After a stint at the Hotel de la Ville near the Spanish Steps and the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome and another sojourn in Sweden to learn the trade, I returned to Malta after my father wrote to me to come back because of his failing health.
I took over the construction and finishing works nine months before completion. This gave me the opportunity to dictate the date of opening, which I set as the 28th March which was my 24th birthday!
By then a Swedish company which had been commissioned to run the hotel did not turn up to face its obligations and we decided to open the hotel without any planned marketing whatsoever. I recall that when the Preluna opened, most of the catering staff were mainly from Valletta because the catering trade was mostly concentrated in the capital. A number of staff were cooks who had served in the British Royal Navy, while a few had worked at the Phoenicia Hotel in Floriana. I used to bring over teachers from MCAST to show our cooks how to prepare new menus. There were few cooks, if any, who had been trained to prepare imaginative dishes, but there has been a quantum leap in the past 10 to 15 years in this sector. At the time, Britain was going through a recession, with then Prime Minister Harold Wilson restricting Britons to spending not more than £250 in countries falling outside what was then known as the Sterling Area. This led to a lot of well-off Britons making a beeline to Malta and eventually resulting in a property boom on the island. About two years later, Harold Wilson lifted the spending restriction and Malta’s woes began.
Opening more or less at the same time as the Preluna were the Hilton, the Sheraton, Corinthia and the Cavalieri.
A lot of Americans from the Sixth Fleet used to visit Malta every month for ten days and their patronage used to see us through a whole month. The Argyll Steak House in Milner Street at the back of the hotel used to be packed three times over during their visits. For the Argyll Steak House (which has now been taken over by Nina's Wine Bar and Restaurant) we used to fly in from Scotland Aberdeen Angus steak that is still famous for its fine quality and which was a favourite with the Americans. The Skyroom and Venus nightclubs offered fine entertainment, with beautiful girls making for vibrant evenings at a time when Malta in the late 1960s was practically dead.
The Preluna had 200 full-timers, one of whom was my wife, Venera. Having met her at work, she knew what she was in for! Our main aim at the time was to pay back a loan of about a million Liri. I dedicated my life to the hotel, being there day and night and turning it into the most successful hotel on the island. When Dom Mintoff was returned to office in 1971 and he started to court Libya's Gaddafi, a lot of Britons lost faith in Malta and the major five-star hotels suffered serious consequences. At the same time, however, there appeared a silver lining as the charter market started to gain momentum, with Thomson being first on the scene in 1970, coming in with charters and taking over the Mellieha Bay Hotel. We were one of the hotels that accommodated Thomson guests, a contract that led to a long and fruitful cooperation. Swedish tour operators followed suit. Charter was extremely good for tourism, with very high occupancy throughout the year.
I used to market the hotel as everyone else did then, calling personally on British, French and Italian tour operators and travel agents. I also engaged a British advertising agency that came up with slogans like "The hotel that stands head and shoulders above the rest" and
"The hotel kissed by the sun". The agency also produced a fantastic brochure featuring a photograph shot from the Skyroom with the blurb reading "Your memories will linger on till you return".
The Preluna fitted the demand of mass tourism. The Skyroom provided excellent cabaret with Maltese singer Renato, Julie James and the Olivia Dow Dancers, among whom was Alison White. In fact, Renato and Alison met at the Preluna. At the Venus nightclub, Maltese singer and musician Edwin Galea used to mesmerise clients with his rendition of Granada. Edwin was The Voice. The Preluna was the first hotel to introduce the Maltese Night - Lejla Maltija - with typical Maltese dishes, the Paul Curmi folk dancers and folk singers such as Il-Bambinu. The Maltese Night became so popular that we ended up having three such nights a week instead of the initial one night.
In the late 1980s, our company bought two houses, one on the front and another on Ghar id-Dud Street corner with Howard Street. The aim was to extend the hotel by 100 rooms. For the sake of quality over quantity, part of the footprint was sacrificed in order to have as many rooms as possible with a sea view. We also added a new Coffee shop, a Spa, a Conference Room and premises for both a Bank and a Bingo Hall. At around the same time, the charter market had its own downturn, with Freddie Laker and Horizon going under. A price war developed amongst the large British Tour Operators, with them all competing to obtain a larger market share at the expense of the hoteliers from whom they kept demanding cheaper prices. However, our ability to cope with volume together with the location and the facilities we offered at the Preluna gave us an edge and we are proud that till this day we have never effected any redundancies. Over a forty-year period that is in itself a great achievement.
