More nights spent in hotels

A total of 355,112 nights were spent in hotels in January, an increase of 4.2 per cent over the same month in 2006, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. Year-on-year, the average length of stay in collective accommodation establishments remained unchanged at 7.7 nights.

Accounting for 95.8 per cent of the national bed-stock, the overall supply of bed-places in the Malta region stood at 36,616 beds, a decrease of three per cent when compared to the previous year.

On an annual basis, the net use of bed-places in the Malta region went up by 3.4 percentage points to 34.8 per cent in January 2007. Year-on-year, the average length of stay remained the same at 7.9 nights.

In the Gozo and Comino region, the overall supply of bed-places stood at 1,622 beds, a decrease of 2.7 per cent over the comparable month a year earlier.

The net use of bed places in January was 14.4 per cent, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points over the same month in 2006. The average length of stay was at 2.7 nights, down by 0.1 nights when compared to January 2006.