Half of tourists stay in four-star hotels

Most tourists visiting the Maltese islands last year stayed in four-star hotels, followed by the three-star and the five-star categories, according to the National Statistics Office.

The four-star hotel group hosted 51.4 per cent of the total number of tourists who visited the islands last year while the three-star and the five-star hotel categories hosted 25.4 per cent and 20 per cent of all tourists respectively.

Hotels were followed by aparthotels and holiday complexes as choice accommodation by tourists, the statistics show.

Data on tourism from a regional perspective in respect of last year and the first seven months of this year was retrieved from the Inbound Tourism Survey database.

In the first seven months last year, a total of 411,913 of all tourists stayed in hotels and, of these, 6,273 (1.5 per cent) chose to stay in hotels in Gozo.

The tourists staying in hotels spent a total of 3,547,673 nights of which 67,289 (1.9 per cent) were spent in Gozo.

In the first seven months this year, the number of tourists staying in hotels reached 457,487, an increase of 45,574 (11.1 per cent) when compared to the same period last year. A total of 450,015 tourists stayed in hotels in Malta, an increase of almost 10.9 per cent over last year.

In the same period, an estimated 7,472 tourists stayed in hotels in Gozo, an increase of over 19.1 per cent over the same period last year.

According to the statistics, the number of tourist nights in hotel accommodation increased by nine per cent to about 3.9 million nights while the number of tourist nights in hotels in Malta was up by 9.3 per cent to 3.8 million nights.

On the other hand, the number of tourist nights in hotels in Gozo dropped by 5.9 per cent to about 64,000 nights.

In the course of last year, the tourists opting for Gozo as a destination spent Lm5.9 million on their visit, which accounted for 1.7 per cent of all tourism expenditure.

In the first seven months this year, tourists to Gozo spent Lm2.5 million - 1.4 per cent of the estimated total tourism expenditure to the country. This expenditure could not be equated to local earnings from tourism because some of it is paid by tourists to foreign enterprises, the NSO said.