NEWS | Wednesday, 22 August 2007

Tourist arrivals for this summer expected to hit new highs

Bianca Caruana

Summer results for tourists travelling to Malta may prove to be extremely positive with an expected 7.7% global increase. There have not been any official figures published for July and August as yet but according to the Malta Tourism Authority, and figures issued by the Malta International Airport the first data proves to be very encouraging. Low cost airlines and student arrivals appear to be the reason for the upward trend.
Figures have not yet been issued by the MTA for 2007, however comments from the Tourism industry are favourable, claiming an increase of 12.5 per cent for July and a 10 per cent increase up until the 20 August 2007.
“Low-cost airlines are contributing substantially towards the increase in the number of tourists visiting Malta,” Minister for Tourism and Culture Francis Zammit Dimech argues.
Talking to Business Today the minister said, “We envisage that taking into account the four new routes to be operated by Ryanair later this year, low cost airlines will bring 160,000 passengers over to Malta in one whole year.”
Ryanair started to operate only recently after repeated calls made by the industry to allow in low cost airlines since 2005. Low-cost airlines were always expected to make for a volume leap in the Maltese tourism industry and achieve a substantial growth in the short term.
Zammit Dimech continued, “The MTA estimates an increase of seven per cent on the number of students that visited Malta last year. Provisional estimates for last year show that 66,000 English language students visited Malta.
“A 7 per cent increase gives 4,600 more students in a whole year, or about 2,300 over a period of six months.”
According to the MTA, the dependence on student tourists for the Maltese tourism market has not changed, saying, “Considering that in the six months of this year tourism figures went up by 30,000 the increase in the number of students was only 7.7 per cent in the total.”

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