Hotels are not benefitting from the increase in tourist arrivals, with the number of nights spent there by tourists down by 8.2 per cent in the first three months of the year, in spite of an increase of 4.2 per cent in the overall number of guest nights spent on the island.

The National Statistics Office said on Wednesday that the number of guests staying in hotels went down by 6.4 per cent, while the number of tourist arrivals for that period had increased by 2.8 per cent.

It was even worse on the other side of the Gozo channel. Split by regions, Malta saw a decrease of 7.9 per cent in the number of nights spent, while Gozo and Comino saw a decrease of 19.3 per cent.

Hoteliers have long been lamenting the switch by tourists to alternative accommodation like AirBnB.

The occupancy rate was 47.7 per cent, down by 4.9 percentage points when compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

During March 2019, there were 190 active collective accommodation establishments with a net capacity of 17,723 bedrooms and 40,520 bed-places.

 

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