Cruise passengers down by 50% in June
Cruise passenger traffic in Malta last month was half that in June 2008, the NSO said today.
It said 33,636 people came to Malta on cruise ships, a decrease of 33,623 passengers over the corresponding month in 2008.
Embarkations from and landings in Malta stood at 992 and 948 persons respectively.
In the January-June period, total cruise passenger traffic in Malta amounted to 135,515, a decrease of 31.8 percent over the comparative period last year.
Passengers from EU countries accounted for 67.1 percent of total traffic, the main markets being Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Significant drops were registered in the Spanish and Italian markets.
On the other hand, cruise passengers coming from non-EU countries registered an increase of 6.4 percent, notably in the American market.
On a gender basis, female passengers exceeded male ones by 12.8 percent. The largest proportion of passengers - 39.1 percent - comprised persons aged between 60 and 79, followed by those in the 40 to 59 age bracket who accounted for 31.7 percent of the total.
Cruise terminal operator Viset said last month that the decline was caused by a change in schedules by major lines as they prepared to introduce, new, bigger ships into their fleets. Those changes have now been made and visitor numbers are set to increase.
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Joseph Brincat
Jul 23rd 2009, 07:43
It seems that all the money spent by the MTA on the Sheffield team adverts did not reap good results.
Shall we try a more famous team. lol
lgalea
Jul 22nd 2009, 16:57
Joanna Galea
Usually tourists who travel with Ryanair etc are moaning tal-habba gozz tourists who expect 5* services while paying for 1* services not high class tourists.
Samuel Kruse
Jul 22nd 2009, 14:02
Another reason might be that Malta is one of the few ports in the Mediterranean that kept an high charge for the ships to dock in valletta compared to many of the other ports who have chosen to remove this charge just to get more tourists.
Kurt Mifsud
Jul 22nd 2009, 12:51
@Joanna Galea
Yes the recession... what's the government doing to ignite the economy? Just compare to the other EU countries
Joanna Galea
Jul 22nd 2009, 12:14
Pity really cause we got it all here on the islands, but the recession is hitting us and nearly everyone with a vengence, and now i hear that RyanAir is cutting down 40% of their flights from the UK to various destinations.i think with RyanAir its the begening of the end- hope not!., i wonder what sort of impact that will have on our economy since we mostly depend on the tourists and since our national airline is a bit over the top with their airfare, we will be loosing out at both ends.