A delegation with purpose and private sector pizazz!

A group of Liverpool & Wrexham business leaders, trade networks and the public sector have spent this last week showcasing Liverpool and Wrexham to their counterparts from Malta – more than sightseeing, it was more about “what can we actually do together? Can we help one another?” And how do we align similar cities/regions with hurdles of 21^st Century Funding and bigger fish to fry mindsets.

And honestly, it’s truly the kind of thing we need more of.

Because on the surface, Malta and Liverpool don’t exactly scream obvious pairing. One’s a Mediterranean island, the other’s a northern UK city.

But when you actually look at it properly, it makes a lot of sense.

Both places have had to graft to stay relevant. Both have built themselves around people, tourism, hospitality, trade, and movement. And both are now in that phase of “what’s next?” rather than just sitting back and hoping things keep ticking over.

And there is loads of opportunities within Malta for Liverpool, in 2025 there were around 930,000 outbound trips made by Maltese residents, which is wild when the population is only around 560,000. If there is a way to better advertise Liverpool, Wrexham or quite simply the North West as more well known holiday destination in Malta then we have to try.

For an island with a population smaller than Liverpool, Malta has built an incredibly international mindset. Tourism, hospitality and global business connections are part of everyday life there, which is probably why the conversations this week felt so relevant.

How do you grow without losing what makes you good in the first place?How do you bring investment in without it watering everything down?How do you actually make partnerships work, not just talk about them?

There’s been a big focus on hospitality, which is no surprise.

Malta lives off it. Liverpool’s built a serious offer around it and Wrexham is on the cusp of delivering a new Tourism Destination/Offer. Plus there was of course the in-depth business talk around AI, Tech, Manufacturing and Maritime.

Both Wrexham and Liverpool City Region are pushing hard right now, investment, development, proper long-term plans. It’s not small stuff. And Malta, knows exactly how to position itself globally. It’s sharp when it comes to business, and it understands how to connect into bigger markets and has a detailed multi-decent plan for its growth.

So it wasn’t just about being a “nice visit” and starts becoming something a bit more serious.

You could feel that shift as the week went on. Honest conversations. Conversations around Hospitality, as much as we all love it, is not having an easy time of it right now.

Everyone’s feeling it. Costs, staffing, expectations, it’s all stacking up. And no one place has cracked it.

That’s why this matters.

Not because it looks good to say there’s an international partnership. But because if you get the right people in the room, from different places but dealing with the same pressures, you start to get better thinking.

You challenge each other a bit more. You see things differently. You pick up ideas you wouldn’t have come to on your own.

And that’s how things actually move forward.

Not overnight. Not from one panel. But from the follow-ups, the conversations after, the “let’s actually try this” moments.

If nothing comes from it, then yeah, it’s just been a few nice days in Liverpool & Wrexham.

But if even a handful of those conversations turn into something real, a partnership, an investment, a new way of doing things, then it’s worth it.

Because at the end of the day, hospitality is built on people.

And the more we open that up, beyond our own cities, beyond our own way of doing things, the stronger it gets.

Simple as that.