|
 |
|
According to figures released by the National Statistics Office yesterday, May’s intake of cruise liner tourism fell sharply on a year on year basis.
The number of cruise passengers landing on Malta’s shores in May of this year fell by 24,112 from May 2003’s 54,852 and totalled 30,740.
Cruise passengers from the US market rose by 2,354 to 6,622 from 4,268 in May last year. Other increases in arrivals were recorded from, amongst other, the Austrian (+31), the Canadian (+467) and the Geek (+20) markets.
In the month under review, drops in arrivals were recorded from the Italian (-2,356), the Spanish (-8,984), the Swiss (-2,130), the British (-9,309), the Belgian (-130), the French (-1664), the German (-473), the Irish (-272), the Dutch (-125), the Norwegian (-172), the Swedish (-177), and a group of “other” (-1,073) markets.
Over the first five months this year, the number of cruise passengers that visited the Maltese islands went decreased by 25,121 over the same period last year and amounted to 52,611. In the period under review, the highest amount of cruise passengers were those coming from the French market (10,354) followed by the U.S (10,187) and the British (9,072) markets.
The greatest proportion of cruise passengers, 63.0 per cent were aged 50-79 years, followed by passengers aged 20 49 years (30 per cent) and 0-19 years (4 per cent) respectively. The majority of the cruise passengers were females, which accounted to 53 per cent of passengers. |
