The Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) has signed a key marketing support agreement with British tour operator TUI Travel UK, with the company committed to promote the destination for the next three years, with an aim of increasing tourist numbers from the UK.

The MTA, in the past few months, also secured long term agreements with Thomas Cook, as well as specialist tour operator Saga Holidays.

Through the latest agreement, Malta will be aggressively promoted through all of TUI's distribution channels, ranging from TV, magazine and newspaper advertising to online activities and a display presence in over 500 high street shops throughout the UK.

MTA's CEO Mr Josef Formosa Gauci commented that this agreement gives the MTA the opportunity to focus on a long term strategy, recognising the importance of tour operator traffic, where such support is performance related, thus incentivising the operator to provide incremental delivery of tourists to the Islands in the coming years. Furthermore, TUI will endeavour to increase its coverage of hotel and self-catering establishments in Gozo.

A TUI UK spokesman said: ‘we are very pleased we will be entering a three year agreement with MTA. This will enable us to strengthen our cooperation and focus on developing our Malta program further instead of focusing only on the short term".

TUI Travel PLC is the world's leading international leisure travel group which operates in approximately 180 countries worldwide and serves more than 30 million customers in over 27 source markets. The Group employs approximately 50,000 people and operates a pan-European airline consisting of 146 aircraft, with revenues of £13.9bn