Tourist arrivals drop 11.9% in June

A total of 113,953 came to Malta last month, a decrease of 11.9 percent when compared to June 2008, the NSO said today. During the same period total nights spent decreased by 9.0 percent.

The June results mean that tourist arrivals in the first half of the year were down 13.8 percent from January to June last year. The total number of arrivals was 497,868.

The NSO said that the change was mostly attributable to a decrease in holiday visits from the British, German and French markets.

On the other hand increases were recorded in the Italian and Libyan markets. In the period under review, total tourist expenditure was estimated at €356.8 million, a decrease of 11.8 percent when compared to last year's level. Decreases were recorded throughout all expenditure categories. The survey results indicate that percapita total expenditure is estimated at €732, up by 2.7 per cent when compared to 2008 levels.