A feeble trickle of foreign visitors to Malta has been recorded through the ages but one must wait for the beginning of the 20th century for that drip to start qualifying as tourism and for the 1950s as mass tourism.  

Few seemed to believe in Malta’s potential as a tourist attraction and little was done in the beginning to promote it as such. 

A pre-printed postcard of the Hamburg-American Line distributed to passengers to inform recipients that the liner Moltke had safely arrived in Malta on February 23, 1907.

The first inroads into what was to turn into unstoppable avalanches were made by passenger ships which started stopping for the day in Grand Harbour. For decades, that would be about the only tourism Malta could boast of.

The passenger and troop ship SS Empire Test (1922-1957) in Grand Harbour, 1930s.

Passenger ships, one-, two- or three-funnelled, distinguished themselves by the colours of their stacks. Each maritime company promoted itself by painting the funnels in its distinctive livery – stripes, stars, chequers, roundels. Observers from the Valletta Barrakkas would tell from a distance if the ship approaching belonged to Cunard, Lloyd, French Line, Cosulich, Hamburg-America or other.

The back of a souvenir postcard of the passenger ship SS Breamer Castle (1898-1924) to advise its safe arrival in Malta on March 4, 1923.

The back of a postcard of the Cunard line RMS Carinthia, promoting in quaint Maltese the trip to New York sailing from Malta in January 1928. The ship was torpedoed in 1940.

Some of these passenger ships would stop regularly in Grand Harbour and disgorge hundreds of day trippers. One of the more high-profile regulars was the Cunard liner MV Carinthia, which became synonymous with tourism. Legend suggests that when the Pisani brothers invested seriously in tourism, they branded their business ‘Corinthia’ in homage to that ship.

The passenger ship MV Carola (1892-1916) plied regularly between Sicily and Malta, carrying passengers and mail.

Many of the passenger ships that regularly stopped in Maltese harbours ended requisitioned during WWI and WWII, to be turned into troop or hospital ships; some were sadly torpedoed. Passenger ships differed from cruise liners – before air travel took over, they provided a utilitarian service to persons who wanted to travel from point A to point B, stopping for sightseeing at intermediate harbours. Cruise liners, on the other hand, offer leisure holidays at sea.

The passenger, later, hospital ship Rewa visited Malta in November 1910. It was built in 1906 and torpedoed in 1918.

The interior of a cabin of the P&O passenger ship Himalaya (1948-1974). Postcard used in Malta in 1949.

The Blue Star Line passenger ship Arandora Star in Grand Harbour in the 1930s. The ship, built in 1927, was torpedoed in 1940 with a huge loss of lives – 805 passengers and crew.

All images from the author’s collections.

This rare embossed postcard printed in gold, silver and bronze, was issued in the 1910s by the Hamburg South American Line to help passengers to Malta convert British currency into German Reichmarks.