Hotels and guest-houses saw a 12.8% increase in the number of guests in June, but that is actually not such good news when you consider that there were 19.4% more tourists that month.

There were 990,182 visitors to Malta and Gozo in the first six months of the year, of which 848,806 stayed in collective accommodation.

The National Statistics Office also reported today that guest nights spent in collective accommodation establishments during June were up by 4.2 per cent when compared to June 2016. This is because tourists made shorter trips, staying 5.3 nights on average, compared with 5.7 just a year earlier.

The NSO also reported that just under three-quarters of the 41,319 bed-places were booked, slightly better than a year before.