Tourism down in April as British market suffers

The number of tourists departing by air in April dropped by 3.8 per cent to 87,433, compared to the same month last year, the National Statistics Office said.

Germans accounted for 13.4 per cent of the departures, an increase of 4.9 per cent. Increases were also recorded in tourism from France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Libya and Sweden.

The number of UK air tourists, who made up 36.4 per cent of the market, was down by 14 per cent. Other drops were recorded from Italy, Austria, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, USA and a group of other markets.

In April, holiday tourists accounted for 81.6 per cent of the market while 10.5 per cent were business visitors. When compared to the same month last year, holiday tourists declined by 6.9 per cent and business visitors increased by 10.1 per cent.

In the January-April period, total tourist departures amounted to 257,073. Of these, 254,573 were air departures, which declined by 0.4 per cent when compared to the same period last year.

The German market, which accounted for 12.8 per cent of all tourist air departures, increased by 0.1 per cent. Increases were recorded in the Belgian, Danish, French, Dutch, Swedish and a group of other markets.

Tourist air departures from the British market, which accounted for 42.7 per cent, decreased by 4.2 per cent. Other declines were recorded in the Italian, Austrian, Norwegian, Swiss, Russian, Libyan and US markets.

The number of nights spent in the Maltese islands by tourists departing by air between January and April reached 2,438,308, a drop of 4.2 per cent over the same period in 2004. The number of nights spent in hotel accommodation establishments accounted for 71.3 per cent of the total nights spent, a drop of 1.3 per cent.

Expenditure on package tours for visits to Malta in the first four months of this year was estimated at Lm43.8 million, an increase of Lm2.4 million or 5.7 per cent over the same period last year. Non-package tourists spent Lm9.8 million on air fares and Lm6 million on accommodation. Total expenditure on non-package travel fell by approximately Lm0.5 million, or three per cent.

Other expenditure by both package and non-package tourists altogether decreased by Lm0.3 million to Lm28,318,451 in January-April from Lm28,650,588 in the same period last year. Total expenditure increased by Lm1.5 million, or 1.8 per cent. As a result, per capita expenditure increased to Lm172.7 from Lm169.