Restaurants in Valletta and St Julian’s are preferred more by tourists than they are by residents, a study has shown.

The study was carried out by online booking system Tableo together with MCAST and is based on 650,000 bookings and 2,700,625 covers (the number of diners served at a restaurant) from 800 restaurants across Malta and Gozo between January and December 2024.

Roughly 60 to 70% of restaurants in the country use Tableo as a reservation system.

The study offers several insights into digital booking trends, customer behaviour, seasonality and the influence of digital reservation channels.

Anyone looking to book a table in a quiet restaurant should avoid 8pm on a Saturday in August, as these are the most popular time, day of the week and month, respectively.

St Julian’s and Birkirkara are the two most popular dining destinations among residents

Predictably, Monday and January are the least busy day of the week and month, respectively.

St Julian’s and Birkirkara are the two most popular dining destinations among residents. The latter seems to be largely unknown to tourists, who favour Valletta instead.

How locals and tourists differ in their choice of where to go to eat.

In fact, the capital and St Julian’s are the two towns whose restaurants are frequented more by tourists than they are by locals, with Valletta eateries getting around double the reservations from tourists over residents.

On the other hand, towns such as Mġarr, Żebbuġ and Attard see far more bookings from locals.

The study also breaks down bookings according to the season. The most popular towns for restaurant bookings in summer are St Paul’s Bay, Mellieħa and Sliema, whereas in the winter months people prefer Naxxar, Valletta and St Julian’s.

St Paul’s Bay experiences the biggest seasonal swing, with a 58.1% spike in booking between winter and summer.

The study was made possible thanks to a grant from Xjenza.mt, which Tableo used to develop an artificial intelligence-assistant tool used to accept and manage reservations through Facebook messenger, as well as answer common queries.