The number of guests visiting Malta in the third quarter of the year was 5.5 per cent higher than in the same period 12 months prior, new figures released on Monday show.

578,350 guests visited the country during that quarter, spending almost 3.3 million nights in total. Almost half of them, 46.1 per cent, were spent in four-star hotels.

Guests spent an average of 5.7 nights in Malta – down 0.1 of a night when compared to the third quarter of 2017.

The net use of bed places stood at 84.1 per cent, up 2.2 percentage points.

Guests in Malta rose at a faster rate – 5.8 per cent – than in Gozo and Comino, which saw a 1 per cent increase.

Similarly, while the number of nights spent by guests was up by 3.4 per cent in Malta, it declined by 0.8 per cent in Gozo and Comino.

Over the first nine months of the year, more than 1.5 million guests visited the country – an increase of 9.8 per cent over the same period in 2017. Total nights were up by 7.2 per cent over that period, with bed-use places also up 2.9 percentage points to reach 71.1 per cent.