Maltese tourists are less likely to use the internet to book flights and holiday accommodation than their European counterparts, new figures show.

Two out of every three air trips within the European Union in 2014 were booked online, Eurostat figures have revealed. The statistics also revealed that more than 50 per cent of all accommodation reservations across the EU that year came from online bookings.

But while 90 per cent of Finnish people use the internet to book their flights, in Malta a shade under 60 per cent do. Similarly, only 48 per cent of Maltese went online to book their holiday accommodation – lower than the 55 per cent EU average, and far behind the 68 per cent of French and Dutch who do so.

Although less Maltese go online to book flights and accommodation than the EU average, Malta is by no means the European laggard. In Romania and Slovakia, just one in four people book flights online, while less than one in 10 Bulgarians uses the internet to book accommodation.

The growing importance of e-bookings for tourism operators is reflected in the sector’s online presence. 95 per cent of accommodation enterprises across the EU have a website – higher than the 75 per cent average across all industry sectors.

Furthermore, accommodation enterprises also take the lion’s share of online bookings. While 63 per cent of accommodation providers had received online orders, just 19 per cent of all enterprises had.