Tourists arrival in May grew by 10 per cent over the same period last year, according to official statistics.

Tourists staying in hotels and other collective accommodation facilities amounted to almost 157,000 and total nights spent added up to about 820,000, the National Statistics Office said.

All hotel categories recorded increases in nights except for 4-star hotels, which still 376,164 guest nights, or 45.9 per cent of the total.

The average length of stay shortened to 5.2 nights from 5.6 nights in May 2013.

Arrivals numbered 148,000 people in May while those in Gozo and Comino rose by 2.3 per cent to just over 8,600.

The number of visitors in the first five months reached almost 563,000, up 10.8 per cent over the same period in 2013. Total nights for the period grew by 4.4 per cent, reaching 2.9 million.

Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said Gozo was clearly lessening its dependency on day trippers.