Tourism -
a Maltese success story
Edward Zammit Lewis
“As the year draws to a close, I take pride in stating that 2015 has been
an absolute record year for the Maltese Islands”
T
ourism
has become a vital and key pillar of the Maltese economy. It is extremely encouraging that Malta is registering
an increase in both tourism arrivals and expenditure,
year after year.
The great optimism surrounding this sector has been
confirmed by several reports and statistics originating
from both local and international sources. The World
Tourism Organisation has praised the growth in tourist
arrivals in Malta, referring to it as being ‘robust and positive’. The latest World Tourism Barometer, published
in August, states that global tourism between January
and June of this year rose by 4%. During this same period, tourist arrivals in Malta rose by 5.3%, surpassing
the average increase registered by other Mediterranean
destinations at 4.6%.
Tourist arrivals between January and August of 2015
stood at more than 1.2 million, an increase of 4.7% over
the same period of last year, while the number of bed
nights reached 9.6 million, an increase of 4.4%. Tourism expenditure during this period rose by an impres-
10
2015
sive 6.8%, to no less than €1.2 billion. This translates to
an additional €71 million being injected into our economy. The fact that the increase in tourism expenditure
is exceeding the growth in arrivals clearly indicates that
our policy of attracting high-end tourism is bearing fruit.
Moreover, the cruise lining sector is also increasing in
importance. The latest cruise passenger data indicates
that during the first nine months of this year, the number of cruise passengers increased by more than 33%,
or by 105,000 passengers, when compared to the same
period in 2014. Furthermore, Malta's cruise sector
has been successfully evolving from one which was exclusively port-of-call, to one which now also comprises
the important aspect of home-porting.
Such results are the outcome of a concerted and co-ordinated drive by all stakeholders to develop our product, and to promote Malta as a leading cruise destination in the Central Mediterranean, in what is certainly
a very highly competitive market.
Positive tourism indicators are also being registered in
the off-peak months which augurs well for our drive
to tackle effectively an issue which has been troubling
our tourism industry practically since its inception.
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