Tourists visiting Malta in the first four months of the year increased by 5.6 per cent, according to June’s World Tourism Barometer, published by the World Tourism Organisation.

In a statement, the Malta Tourism Authority said this implied that Malta’s performance continued to exceed growth rates for the world and Europe - proof that Malta was sustaining its trend of outperforming overall growth rates at global, continental and regional levels.

[attach id=440295 size="medium"][/attach]

According to the barometer, international tourism demand continued to be robust, with tourist arrivals increasing by 4.4 per cent worldwide.

Almost all regions were enjoying strong growth in performance.

Europe, the world’s most visited region, continued to enjoy higher than world average growth with international arrivals increasing by 4.9 per cent. The barometer estimated tourism performance for the southern Europe/Mediterranean region at +4.8 per cent.

Prospects for the May-August period remained upbeat, with close to 500 million tourists expected to travel abroad during these four months.

The MTA said it shared this optimism as inbound tourism to Malta was expected to continue to grow in summer.

The key factor for these positive results related to the tireless efforts of all the stakeholders in managing to exceed the averages.