Tourism data

I refer to letter by Revel Barker (Tourism Figures, January 26).

Tourism departures went up by 3.5 per cent in 2004 and by 1.4 per cent in 2005. Following the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York there was a drop in tourism worldwide. In Malta's case there was a drop in tourism between 2001 and 2003.

So I cannot understand the correspondent's assertion that "tourism ministers seem to have been saying, every year, that tourism figures are up slightly more than three per cent when compared with the previous year" and that the number of visitors "must therefore be increasing by 10 per cent" every three years. This is totally gratuitous.

Tourism figures are published by the National Statistics Office and not by the Malta Tourism Authority.

Cruise passengers are not added to tourist figures. The correspondent should ask all those that come across cruise passengers whether these "see only Valletta" and whether these go to our capital "at a time when all these shops are shut".

Checking information before putting pen to paper will contribute towards a fair analysis of the tourism situation in Malta.