The Merhba Programme is one of five activities that form part of the ‘Tourism and Support Services Training Programme’. This Programme was funded by the European Social Fund (under the 2004/2006 Structural Funds Programme) and was launched in May 2006 with the aim of providing for a holistic approach towards training and human resource development in tourism and tourism-support services.

This Programme included training in service culture, benchmarking improvement of standards and work practices, training transport service providers on the ability to communicate with tourists and providing helpful information about Malta, management training and support for small businesses, as well as a study on lifelong learning for the tourism sector. 

Following last year's success of the Merhba training programme, where over 586 key transport service providers were trained in customer care and service culture, of which over 137 were front-line employees from the Malta International Airport and Air Malta, the Merhba programme has been re-launched.  The second Merhba Tourism Awareness and Customer Care training programme is aimed at improving the customer service knowledge, ability and skills, not only of transport operators and transport support services as was the case in the previous programme, but also of front- line operational staff of tourism establishments in Gozo and individuals employed or seeking employment as Group Leaders in the EFL sector.

By the end of the project, the Malta Tourism Authority would have targeted over 1,500 front-liners in the tourism sector. The total funds for the Tourism and Support Services Training Programme amount to € 571,587.