Beyond Hospitality: The Sectors Where Erasmus+ Participants Actually Train in Malta

Lexema Malta

Sep 29

3 min read

Erasmus+ internship sectors in Malta | Beyond hospitality

There is a question every coordinator hears when they propose Malta to their school: isn't that just a holiday with a work placement attached? It is a fair question.

Malta is a small island with a large tourism industry, and a badly matched placement can turn into exactly what the objection describes. So rather than argue, it is more useful to answer with the actual list: the sectors our participants have worked in, and what they did there.

The range is wider than the reputation

Over a recent period, participants hosted by Lexema have worked, for example, in bakeries and kitchens, in a diving centre handling client coordination and bookings, in a surf school, in offices, in workshops, in retail, in veterinary clinics and in ship maintenance.

That last one deserves a pause. A group currently with us from Italy is working across tourism, corporate information systems, and mechanics, mechatronics and ship maintenance — the third of those in a country where the maritime industry is part of the economy rather than part of the scenery. Malta's position in the Mediterranean has made ship repair and marine services a real industrial sector, and it is one of the least expected placements a school can offer.

We have also hosted veterinary students from Romania in Maltese clinics, professionals observing penitentiary healthcare, and job shadowing in the pharmaceutical sector.

Why hospitality still appears, and why that is fine

Hospitality is on the list, and it should be. For a student on a catering or tourism course, a placement in a Maltese kitchen or hotel is the right placement, the island's hospitality industry operates year round and at a scale that most sending countries cannot match at that price point.

The problem is never hospitality itself. The problem is hospitality as the default — what happens when a hosting organisation has a short list of companies and fits every participant into it regardless of what they study. A commerce student washing dishes has been sent abroad, but they have not been given an internship.

What matching actually involves

The difference between the two situations is the work that happens before anyone arrives.

A placement is matched on three things: 1. the participant's field of study; 2. their level and age; 3. what the company can realistically give them to do.

Sometimes the third one is what rules a placement out. A company may be willing, well-run and enthusiastic, and still have no task that a seventeen-year-old can be given responsibility for in three weeks.

This is also why the size of a partner network matters more than it sounds. Lexema has worked in Malta since 2016 and hosted over 1,200 participants in 2025, with a network of more than 175 partner companies. The point of that number is not the number. It is that with 175 companies you can say no to a placement that does not fit, and still place the participant. With fifteen, you cannot.

Two things worth asking a hosting organisation

If you are comparing destinations or providers, these two questions separate most of them.

"Which sectors can you not cover?" An honest answer is a good sign. Every hosting organisation has gaps — sectors where they have one partner company, or none. A provider who claims to cover everything is either much larger than they appear or is planning to improvise.

"What will the participant do in the first week?" Vague answers here usually mean observation. A specific answer (the tasks, the tutor, the routine) usually means the conversation with the company has already happened.

What the sectors mean for a project application

There is a practical reason to care about this beyond the quality of the experience.

A project that connects the placement sector to the participants' study field is a stronger application. Learning objectives become concrete, the evaluation at the end has something to measure, and the final report writes itself. "Students improved their professional competences" is weak. "Students in a mechatronics course carried out maintenance tasks in a marine workshop" is not.

And for the participant, the sector is what makes the experience portable. Someone who coordinated clients and bookings at a diving centre did not just practise English. They learned to handle a customer who is unhappy, in a second language, in a workplace where the answer mattered. That transfers to any job they take afterwards.

Planning a mobility in Malta

If you are preparing a project and want to know whether we can cover your students' sectors, the fastest way is to tell us four things: how many participants, what they study, what dates, and how long. We will tell you what we can host, and, where relevant, what we cannot.