Malta's tourism growth reaches 5.3 pct in H1

The recent World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Barometer results published for the first six months of this year confirmed that Malta registered a 5.3 percent growth while international tourism grew by 4 percent compared to last year, the archipelago's Minister for Tourism Edward Zammit Lewis said on Wednesday at a business breakfast to celebrate the World Tourism day.

Addressing the gathering, Lewis added that Malta also outperformed its competitors in the Southern European Mediterranean region, which registered a lower growth than Malta at 4.6 percent.

The tourism minister accentuated that tourism to the Maltese Islands mainly depends on air route connectivity where the country has been successful in this regard.

During summer time, Malta is directly connected with 94 airports while for next winter seat capacity shall increase by approximately 5 percent over last year through direct connections to 57 airports. This winter, the national airline will operate an extensive schedule of routes with direct connections to 22 destinations and circa 700,000 seats on offer, excluding charter operations.

Cruise passenger market is another complementary activity to the international tourism flows attracted to Malta, said the minister, Valletta Cruiseport is expecting to register a total of 325 port calls that would bring about 640,000 passengers to Malta by the end of 2015.

The Ministry for Tourism also launched official video to further promote Malta as winter tourism destination at the end of the business breakfast. Endit