‘Don’t kill the golden goose’ - British travel writer warns Malta on overtourism

A British travel writer and expert on Malta has warned that the country could be the next victim of overtourism. 

In her contribution to a Daily Telegraph article titled ‘The fastest-growing travel destinations – and the countries nobody wants to visit’, Telegraph Travel’s Juliet Rix speculated that Malta might be the next country to experience unrest due to overtourism, following protests in Venice, Barcelona and Dubrovnik. 

“On recent visits, I’ve found Valletta uncomfortably full for the first time. The Maltese have always welcomed tourists and will probably continue to do so for the moment, but there is indeed now a risk of overtourism and all that that implies,” Rix wrote. 

According to The Telegraph, Malta had the sixth highest number of tourists per square kilometre in the world in 2024, with around 3,564,000 tourists squeezed into 316 square kilometres.   

Contacted by Times of Malta, Rix, author of Bradt Travel Guides’ book on Malta, said that it was during a trip to the country in 2023 when she first felt a sense of claustrophobia.  

“For the first time, Valletta was uncomfortably full, tour groups vied for space looking at the view in the Upper Barrakka Gardens and you couldn't make yourself heard. I'd never known it like that before,” said Rix, who also leads tours to Malta. 

She said that on the same trip, she struck up a conversation at a cafe with a young English couple in Mdina, who told her they did not like Valletta. 

“I was shocked. How could anyone not like Valletta? So I asked why. Their reply: It's too crowded.” 

Tourists crowd the viewing gallery at Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valletta. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

She noted that how busy the capital feels varies day by day, and largely depends on the number of cruise ships in the Grand Harbour.  

“Mdina can get busy too now though, and I'd also just visited the recently-opened new 600-bed hotel in Qawra and wondered whether Malta really needed another 600 mass market hotel rooms.” 

Despite her less-than-positive experience during that trip, Rix insisted that Malta is still a “fabulous” holiday destination. 

"It’s got a fascinating history, clear blue sea and far better hotels and food than it had even 15 years ago. It is rightly attracting a broader range of tourists - both in terms of age and nationality - and is getting steadily better known and more popular. 

“With numbers continually rising, though, I do think Malta needs to be careful not to overdo it and kill the golden goose.” 

According to figures compiled by the National Statistics Office, inbound tourists for the first six months of 2025 amounted to 1,805,730, an increase of 13.5 per cent over the same period in 2024. Total nights spent by inbound tourists went up by 13.2 per cent, almost reaching 10.7 million nights. 

Total guests in accommodation establishments during the second quarter of 2025 stood at 761,184 - up by 8.1 per cent from the same period last year.  

Meanwhile, a recent analysis by Times of Malta carried out using EU data showed that the country has the second-highest tourist intensity – that is, the ratio of the number of overnight stays or tourist arrivals to the resident population of a region – in Europe, with only Croatia having a higher intensity than Malta’s six tourists per resident.