There were 99 cruise liner calls during the third quarter of 2017, seven less than last year, bringing the total for the first nine months of the year to 248.
Passenger traffic reached 214,497 between July and September, an increase of 2.7 per cent over the corresponding period last year, the National Statistics Office said today. This is because on average, every vessel that berthed in Malta carried 2,167 passengers,197 more than last year.
At 76.9 per cent, transit passengers accounted for the absolute majority of total traffic, reaching 164,947.
A total of 7,466 passengers visited Gozo, while 14,129 passengers spent at least one night on board their berthed cruise liner.
The total number of cruise passengers registered during the first nine months of 2017 stood at 482,855, a rise of 7.6 per cent over 2016.