Sliema and St Julian's

The commercial strip along the northern harbour, where the office towers, the hotels and the serviced apartments are, and where an address is a signal about what kind of company you are. Businesses here serve an international workforce that arrived recently and asks its questions in English before it has learned which local name to search for — which is exactly the customer an assistant sends elsewhere when it has never heard of you.

What people actually ask

Real questions, in the local language. Put any of them to ChatGPT yourself and see who it names. That is the whole diagnosis, and it takes a minute.

• Office fit-out contractor in St Julian's for a gaming company moving to a new floor
• Private clinic in Sliema that accepts international health insurance
• Letting agent in Sliema for a long-term apartment near the seafront
• Restaurant in St Julian's for a client dinner, quiet enough to talk