Cruise passenger arrivals slipped by over 45 per cent last month when 6,195 visitors passed through Malta compared to 11,369 in the same period last year, according to the National Statistics Office.

The figures showed that cruise passengers continued to drop from the 14,180 registered in February 2009.

The bulk of this year’s passengers – 6,185 – were in transit with only 10 embarking or landing in Malta.

Three cruise liners made port in February compared to five the previous year.

Cruise passengers from non-EU countries outnumbered those from the EU who went down to 2,022, a drop of 70 per cent.

This decline was caused by drops of 86 per cent and 89 per cent in the German and Italian markets respectively.

Figures showed that the majority of passengers, 3,109, were aged between 60 and 79 while 1,824 were between 40 and 59 years old.

The total number of cruise passengers in the first two months of the year went down by 27 per cent to stand at 14,903 by the end of February. This was mainly brought about by a decrease of 7,120 passengers from the German market, the NSO said.

A drop had also been experienced between January and February 2009 and in the same two months last year when the figures declined from 26,760 to 20,431. However, figures were redeemed throughout the year when the number of cruise passengers rose by 11.7 per cent over 2009, reaching 491,000.