Cruise liner passengers visiting Malta this year are expected to drop by between 50,000 and 75,000, the parliamentary secretary Mario de Marco has told The Times.
The decline - about 11 per cent below 2008 - comes in the wake of record growth in the past years and, according to Dr de Marco, is due to the current global economic downturn.
It is more or less in line with the latest tourism figures, which mark a drop in arrivals of almost 13 per cent in the first half of the year when compared to the same period in 2008. Competing destinations have also seen a similar decrease in tourists, confirming the blow the economic crisis has dealt tourism in the region.
In fact, the World Travel and Tourism Council has just announced a fall of 10 million tourists visiting Mediterranean countries, forecasting a €14 billion loss of income for the region. The arrival of tourists along the Mediterranean coast is down by 10 per cent, it said.
"The decline in tourists visiting Greece, Spain and Portugal will have a devastating effect on local jobs and businesses," it warned, with analysts predicting the situation can only get worse when the real effects are felt.
On a brighter note, Dr de Marco said that "although projections are not guaranteed, the cruise liner terminal operator Viset is confident that, by 2010, the industry should be in a position to return to the figures registered in 2008" - its best year with 555,840 passengers up from144,064 a decade ago.
The number of cruise liner passengers dropped by half in June, totalling 33,636 when compared to the 67,259 who visited in the same period last year. The total cruise passenger traffic in Malta between January and June marked a 32 per cent drop over the comparative period in 2008, the National Statistics Office has said. The number of cruise liner calls has also dropped by 39 per cent this year.
Dr de Marco attributed the decrease in 2009 mainly to the fact that two Spanish cruise operators, Iberojet and Pullmantur, have opted for shorter routes closer to the Iberian Peninsula, dropping Malta, one of its ports of call, and meaning 120,000 fewer passengers, based on the number they accounted for last year.
He pointed out that "when a cruise operator drops a particular route, all ports of call on that route are affected. Moreover, if fewer people go on cruises, all ports of call get affected. People do not go on a cruise for one particular destination but for the whole range featured on any particular route operated by the cruise liner."
However, he said, part of the loss should be offset by operators like Costa Crociere and MSC Cruises, which are using larger ships and including Malta as a port of call. MSC Cruises is committed to bringing 170,000 passengers to the island next year.
As regards government assistance for the industry, Dr de Marco said the Malta Tourism Authority was in talks with cruise lines to promote the Cruise & Stay concept, advertising it in Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and Belgium.
Meanwhile, Boiler Wharf in Senglea will receive its first cruise liners in the coming weeks, he said.
"Needless to say, the use of the wharf has to be viewed within a larger context; we need to ensure that amenities and the infrastructure beyond it are also in a position to welcome the influx of passengers there," Dr de Marco said.
Presenting the bigger picture, he referred to a recent report by the European Cruise Council, which has ranked Malta fourth in terms of ports of call, not only in the Mediterranean but also in Europe - a major climb from a negligible presence in 1998.