Record results for Malta in tourism

Nearly 1.2 million tourists visited Malta in the first 10 months of this year spending more than a billion euros, the government said.

It said in a statement the 1,199,745 visitors spent more than 10 million nights here and €1,034,000,000.

This was a record for the period, both in number and expenditure and the results were obtained due to the wise decisions which were taken, including the increase in sflight to and from new destinations and investment in the local tourism product.

The government’s decisions in the sector were guided by the belief that the profitability of tourism operators depended on the increase in the number of tourists who visited the country.

The UNTWO World Tourism Barometer reported excellent results in the Maltese tourism sector in spite of a strong euro and the country’s strong dependence on air transport and the British market.

The report noted that up to September, the number of tourists had increased by 13 per cent. Even more significant was the fact that income increased by 15 per cent, reflecting that the fact that Malta recovered could not be attributed to a general reduction in prices, as had happened in other destinations.

Tourism primarily recovered because of the consistent efforts of the public and private sectors which worked proactively together to diversity the markets and the products and to invest in marketing and in the more effective promotion of the Maltese islands.

The European Toursim 2010 report, issued by European Travel Commission in October, clearly showed that Malta had been successful in the sector.

Malta had the second largest increase in tourism from among all European countries. It was also had the second largest increase in percentage for the most nights tourists spent on the island.

The report also showed that according to research conducted by the benchmarking company STR Global last year, Maltese hotels registered the second largest strongest increase in the average daily rate paid for rooms when compared to last year from among European countries.

These results, the best from among Malta’s competitors, could only be obtained through the government’s work in favour of tourism, in which all stakeholders were always consulted, it said.