Bad weather forced two cruise liners to cancel their stopover in Malta this week but the number of cruise passengers was still higher than last year, as was the total number of tourists visiting the island.
The two cruise liners could have brought 7,200 people to Malta to add to the 557,000 who stopped over this year. The figure is nearly 66,000 more than last year’s.
With an average spend of €60 per person, cruise liner tourists yielded €33 million this year.
Tourism Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco said the numbers were achieved despite hurdles such as the crisis in Libya, a war in a neighbouring country that made people change their minds on choosing Malta as their holiday destination.
The year was also characterised by an unstable economic scenario and the introduction of austerity measures in a number of European countries, many of them Malta’s core markets.
Despite such challenges Malta managed to outperform last year’s record, Dr de Marco said.
“Intense marketing activities by the Malta Tourism Authority meant that notwithstanding significant drops in seat capacity on flights, including in the summer months, passenger movements still registered substantial increases,” he said.
The sector did well across a number of indicators. Guest-nights rose by more than 460,000 over last year to reach 11.6 million. The average length of stay decreased from 9.5 nights in 2006 to 8.2 nights in 2011 in line with international trends. However, tourist expenditure shot up to €1.2 billion, an increase of €112 million over 2010.
There was a staggering increase of more than 3,550 per cent in tourists from Israel. Clashes between Israel and Turkey enticed more Israelis to travel to Malta instead of Turkey. The 776 who came to Malta in 2006 increased to nearly 28,500 this year.
Dr de Marco said Malta had direct links with 75 airports, up from 45 in 2006. However, accessibility was still a major challenge for the country in 2012.
He said the MTA was focusing its marketing campaigns on increasing the load factor of airlines flying to Malta.
Next year was expected to be a difficult one for the tourism industry as major economies continued to face increased financial challenges, he said.
The challenges for next year continue to be dominated by the restructuring of the national airline, Air Malta, and accessibility as airlines make more cuts in their operations.
Using Ryanair as an example in this regard, Dr de Marco said it had decided to ground 75 of its aircraft across Europe this winter in the face of increased fuel costs.
He referred to a five-year tourism plan, covering 2012 to 2016, which is in the process of being drafted. The plan, which builds on that for 2007-2011, is expected to be published for public consultation at the beginning of next year.
In the meantime, Dr de Marco said, the government was focusing on upgrading the product Malta offered tourists in terms of infrastructure, heritage and establishments.
He referred to 78 sustainable tourism projects approved under a scheme that funds up to half the capital expenditure. More than €13 million will be spent on such projects with the grant covering nearly €6.1 million of the expense.
Labour tourism spokesman Gavin Gulia poured cold water on the good news, saying the sector’s costs had also reached record levels. Expenditure on wages of workers in the sector was 0.5 per cent down this year compared to 2008.
Dr Gulia said that a record number of arrivals and bed nights was not enough for the sector. Although this year profits increased by six per cent on 2008, inflation in the same period had risen by 7.1 per cent.
Wages and profits in the first nine months of this year increased by just over 15 per cent over the first nine months of 2004 when inflation had risen by 18 per cent, he said. While, in 2004, €24 of every €100 spent by tourists went to workers, this amount had gone down to about €20 this year, Dr Gulia said.