Tourist arrivals may be higher than the projected 1.1 million

Tourist arrivals this year are expected to be slightly more than the 1.1 million projected way back in December, Tourism Minister Michael Refalo told parliament yesterday.

Giving an overview of tourist developments, the minister said that although arrivals so far this year were below the levels in the same period last year, Malta was performing better than most of the competing destinations and it would recover from the setback caused by the September 11 events faster than most.

Dr Refalo said the British outgoing tourist market was currently down by 11 per cent compared to the same period last year. Malta's performance in that market was also down by 11 per cent, compared to Cyprus which was down 23 per cent, Spain down 16 per cent, the Balearic Islands, down 17 per cent, the Canary Islands, down 18 per cent, Tunisia down 14 per cent, Italy down six per cent, Greece down two per cent, Portugal down nine per cent and Turkey, down 14 per cent. Figures also showed that tourism to Florida was down 31 per cent. The only Mediterranean countries which had registered progress were Bulgaria and Croatia. Arrivals from the UK by the end of the year were expected to be slightly below last year's figures.

German summer tourist sales had slumped by 26 per cent and operators were saying this would be the first ever year when the outgoing market would have declined instead of risen.

German visitors to Cyprus were down 30 per cent, the Balearics and Canary Islands, down 25 per cent, and Malta down by less than 20 per cent. Bulgaria, Turkey and Croatia had registered an increase in visitors.

Dr Refalo said Malta had registered an increased number of visitors compared to last year from Italy and France. The same amount of visitors had been maintained from the Benelux countries and there was a decline from Scandinavia.

Dr Refalo said that had the Tour Operator Support Scheme not been removed, the Malta Tourism Authority would not have had the funds it needed for marketing campaigns and to fund other schemes in various destinations.

Explaining the situation to date, Dr Refalo said that with Easter having fallen in March, Malta attained the same level of arrivals in that month as in March 2001. Arrivals in April were some 16 per cent below April 2001, which had included Easter. When March and April were taken together, arrivals this year were down nine per cent from last year, with loses having been registered from Germany and Scandinavia, among others.

Estimates for May based on figures given by Air Malta and Malta International Airport showed that arrivals from the UK, Germany and the Benelux would be the same as last year and there would be increases from Italy and France although there would be loses from Scandinavia and some other markets.

June figures were expected to show slight drops from the UK, German and French markets. The Italian and Benelux markets would retain last year's levels while other markets would show the same levels.

The World Cup had made many people stay at home. Indeed, there was a surge in bookings in Britain after England was knocked out of the tournament and some UK operators had laid on more charter flights for August and September.

Bookings for September, October and early next year were good and Malta, he had been told by the tourism authority, was on course to better the projected arrivals figure of 1.1 million.