Published on : Monday, August 1, 2016
June 2016 sees Inbound Visitors increase by 5.8%, Total Nights increase by 8.6%, while expenditure increases by 4%.
Inbound tourism results for the month of June and the first semester of 2016 released today by the National Statistics Office point to Malta’s continued positive performance in the incoming tourism field. Following a successful winter season which featured very strong off-peak growth, the positive streak has also extended into the summer season.
Visitor figures for June 2016 show that around 195,000 inbound visitors were registered resulting in an increase of 5.8% over June last year. When excluding overnighting cruise passengers from the data, the strongest increase of 23% related to the younger age group of under 24 years old. European Union arrivals increased by 7.2% while non-EU increased by 7%. The shift towards independent travel continued to prevail with tourists arriving on a package declining by 10,641 and independent tourists increasing by 23,597. The average length of stay increased marginally to stand at 7.5 nights.
Total nights stayed in June 2016 reached 1.444 million an increase of 8.6% over June 2015 while expenditure by tourists stood just short of €170 million following a 4% increase over the corresponding month last year. Italy, UK and France registered volume increases while German tourism flows were almost at par with June last year
The first six months of 2016 are showing a good cumulative increase over the first half of last year with the number of incoming visitors climbing by almost 74,000 to exceed 835,000.
Travel for holiday purposes grew by 11.8% to reach 700,907 while the number of business and professional tourists grew by 8% over the first six months of last year to reach 68,904. Non-package tourists increased by 21.7% while those arriving on a package declined by 3.9%. Owing to the number of new routes and increase in independent travel, the number of first-time visitors increased by 10.3% to reach 576,417 during this year’s first semester. The average length of stay declined marginally to settle at 7 nights per tourist.
During the first half of this year, hotel-type collective accommodation expanded by 5% to account for 602,380 tourists while the number of tourists staying in private accommodation increased by 46,019 to reach 227,470.
Double digit growth was registered from the USA, Spain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia while established markets such as the UK, Italy, France and Germany all feature solid growth over the first half of last year. Expenditure by tourists until the end of June increased by an impressive €36 million to exceed €656 million. Following an increase of 461,000 overnight stays over last year, total nights spent reached 5.846 million.
Malta Tourism Authority CEO Paul Bugeja expressed his satisfaction at the sustained nature of the positive results being registered as a result of Malta’s successful actions in the market place, underpinned by a sound connectivity strategy and an ambitious product development and improvement programme aimed at enhancing quality on all aspects of the country’s tourism offer.
Source:- Malta Tourism Authority
|
||
   
|
||
