Valletta’s population increased by about 14,000 for at least a day yesterday, as the Grand Harbour hosted five cruise liners.
These are five of the 325 vessels that are expected to visit, making 2015 a record year in terms of cruise passengers.
Even if there were occasions when the island’s main passenger harbour hosted as many as seven luxury liners at once, this year would be “an absolute record year”, Valletta Cruise Port’s CEO Stephen Xuereb told a press conference yesterday. As he spoke, most of the 14,000 passengers from the US, Canada, France, Spain and Italy, among others, disembarked as 6,000 crew members prepared the liners for their next leg of the itinerary.
The National Statistics Office said the number of cruise passengers in the second quarter of this year had increased by two thirds over 2014. The total over the first six months grew by 40 per cent compared to the same period last year.
This year will be an absolute record year
Three-quarters of the 225,877 visitors in the first half of this year came from the EU, with the largest increases recorded in the German and Italian markets. There were 117 cruise liner calls between January and June, with an average 1,931 passengers per vessel, compared to 112 calls and an average 1,442 passengers in the same period last year.
A total of 325 cruise ships are expected to call this year, bringing over 640,000 passengers, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said. He said the figures this year turn the tables on 2013, even though 2014 had already seen an improvement on the previous year.
A total of 431,397 cruise passengers visited in 2013, a drop of 23.3 per cent over 2012. There were 286 cruise liner calls, 36 fewer than in the previous year.
The figure grew to 471,554 in 2014, an increase of 9.3 per cent. Cruise liner calls totalled 303.
Mr Xuereb said bookings are already coming in for 2016 and it looks like it would be a good year, too.
Studies commissioned by Valletta Cruise Port estimate that the cruise industry contributes €82.81 million in direct expenditure to the Maltese economy.