Tui Cruises is to home port its cruise ships in Malta from 2011, Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco announced in Parliament this morning.

He said cruise ships would be starting and ending their Mediterranean cruises here for 28 weeks every year and 4,000 German tourists would be here every week to either join their cruise ship or depart.

He said that Viset had attracted Tui to Malta despite competition from Palma and from Greek ports.

Dr de Marco said the drop in cruise ship calls this year was caused by the high oil prices which had forced two cruise operators to operate closer to their own home parts.

In his speech, during the Budget debate in Parliament, Dr de Marco said several infrastructure projects would be taken in hand next year to improve the tourist product, but it was also important that everyone worked to ensure that Malta remained a competitive destination.

He said that while the difficult economic scenario was continuing to persist, there could be a better scenario in the second half of next year with regard to conference travel.

A word of caution, however, was over oil prices, which were rising again and could impact on airlines.