Fewer tourists, more nights

Tourist arrivals in September may have dropped by 2.7 per cent when compared to the same month last year, but the total number of nights they spent on the islands rose by 2.6 per cent, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. Arrivals reached 139,794 but the increase in Dutch, Italian and German tourists was not enough to balance the drop from the UK, France and Spain.

In the first nine months of the year, tourist arrivals totalled 1,045,168, an increase of 7.8 per cent over the corresponding period a year ago. This growth was attributed to an increase in visitors from Germany, Italy and Spain. On the other hand, decreases were recorded from Britain, America and Libya. The British market alone shed 13,762 tourists.