Italy's largest travel group, Costa Cruises, continued investing in a modern cruise ship fleet and included Malta in its weekly summer schedule until November.
It is envisaged that this year Costa will bring to Malta about 110,000 guests, which works out at 20 per cent of last year's total. They will be arriving aboard one of Costa's two newest ships, the Pacifica, which was christened alongside the Luminosa in Genoa earlier this month.
The Pacifica has music as its central theme. In fact, music has not only provided inspiration for the interior design and works of art of the new flagship but is also heard, read and "experienced" throughout the ship.
According to Angelo Capurro, Costa Cruises' sales and marketing project manager in Europe, guests are accompanied on their "exclusive journey by a soundtrack consisting of pieces specially arranged for Costa cruises - 29 pieces form the compilation arranged by Mauro Pagani, Italy's renowned musician and singer".
Music also inspires the onboard art collection, made up of 308 original works and 5,929 reproductions.
The Pacifica is the first cruise ship worldwide to have a professional recording studio on board.
Costa is continuing with its expansion programme and is planning to launch the Deliziosa early next year, together with another couple of vessels by 2012.
"Despite the economic recession worldwide, the cruise industry is still growing and we are still selling all over the world. Customers want to go on holiday and they know that a cruise is good value for money," Dr Capurro said. Pacifica is 290 metres long and 35.5 metres wide, with a gross tonnage of 114,500 and a total guest capacity of 3,780. She has five restaurants, 13 bars, four swimming pools, five jacuzzis, a multi-purpose sports court, outdoor jogging track, video arcade, a PlayStation World and a Grand Prix simulator.
Costa Cruises, Dr Capurro said, was expected to carry over 1.2 million passengers this year to and from 50 ports of embarkation and 250 destinations. It would be operating 100 different itineraries for some 550 cruises. This year alone, Costa, with its Pacifica, will be making 40 stops in Malta, four more than last year.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, Mario de Marco, who visited the ship on her maiden call to Malta, said Grand Harbour had now become the Mediterranean's and Europe's fourth most important port of call.
Last year, over 550,000 passengers visited Malta and, although this year "will not be an easy year", he was pleased to note that in the first four months "we have witnessed a 22 per cent growth". However, this did not mean that Malta would not be facing a drop and, so, it had to be realistic.
Only a few days ago, the National Statistics Office said the number of cruise passengers that arrived in Malta last month dropped by 56.9 per cent to 32,132 compared to the same period last year. Embarkations from and landings in Malta stood at 1,185 and 1,138 respectively.
Viset's acting general manager, Stephen Xuereb, said the drops were not unexpected. Costa and MSC had both started cruises to Malta late this year because they had replaced ships with brand new, larger vessels.
However, not all was doom and gloom and Viset was already taking bookings for next year, which looked like being a good one, at least when compared to 2008.
It had also invested over €2 million to strengthen the quay and was making Boiler Wharf available for the berthing of cruise passengers.
Dr de Marco said Malta was also actively trying to promote Gozo by having a mooring facility outside Xlendi, which allowed smaller cruise liners to make two stops within a short sailing distance.
Costa Pacifica, represented locally by SMS Travel, visits Malta every Friday and its weekly itinerary includes stops in Palermo, Civitavecchia, Savona, Marseilles, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Tunis.