The number of individual paid admissions to museums increased by 42.3 per cent in three years, to reach 838,369 in 2003, the National Statistics Office said.

The NSO said that this was mainly due to a substantial increase in the number of visits to art museums. In fact, these were the most frequented places in the year, followed by archaeology and history museums, military museums and monuments and sites.

The least popular museums - with less than one per cent of all visitors - were maritime museums. Between 2002 and 2003, paid group admissions dropped by 5.7 per cent.

Paid admissions by individuals to museums in Gozo also increased, from 81,784 in 2001 to 88,929 in 2003, an increase of 8.7 per cent.

The most popular places in Gozo were monuments and sites - these garnered 60.2 per cent of all individual paid admissions.

Between 2002 and 2003, the number of full time staff in museums dropped by 4.3 per cent, from 185 to 177. The number of part time staff also decreased, by 3.5 per cent.

But voluntary staff increased by almost 40 per cent from 76 in 2002 to 106 in 2003. Female employment, which in 2003 accounted for 23.3 per cent of all employed staff, decreased by 3.6 per cent, from 56 in 2002 to 54 in 2003.

The NSO said that total museum expenditure in 2003 amounted to almost Lm1.7 million. Of this, wages constituted 60.1 per cent, capital expenditure 12 per cent and maintenance and operational costs 27.9 per cent. Total income for 2003 reached just over Lm1.8 million, the bulk of which, 91.1 per cent, was collected from admission fees.

In 2001, museums and historical sites had registered a total profit of nearly Lm0.2 million, the NSO said.

The NSO said that half of the 46 surveyed museums and historical sites on the Maltese Islands were owned by the state. Another 14, or 30 per cent, were Church-owned, and nine were privately run.

The largest portion of museums, 26.9 per cent, are specialised. These include religious, banking and toy museums, among others.

Twenty-three per cent of surveyed museums were classified as archaeology and history museums, 21.2 per cent as art museums and 7.7 per cent as monuments and sites.