Inbound tourism in February 2023 doubled over the previous year

Travel to Malta in February 2023 nearly reached pre-pandemic levels, with 132,512 tourists visiting the country during the month, just over 90 per cent of the number received in 2020.

Data made available by the National Statistics Office (NSO) shows that inbound tourism in February 2023 grew by 203.5 per cent compared to the previous year, and the number of nights spent grew by 156 per cent.

This disparity between the growth of tourists arriving and nights spent is reflected in a drop in the average length of stay, which fell from eight in February 2022, to 6.2 in February 2023.

Meanwhile, total expenditure per capita by inbound tourists in February 2023 increased to €656 from €619 in 2022, with expenditure per night also increasing to €107, up nearly 40 per cent from the previous year.

This means that, while tourists are having shorter trips in Malta, they are spending more money each day that they are here. This resulted in an increase of overall expenditure of 217.3 per cent.

Total nights spent went up by 57.0 per cent when compared to February 2022, surpassing 0.8 million nights. The largest share of guest nights (86.3 per cent) was spent in rented accommodation establishments.

Travellers from the UK, France, and Italy made up 44 per cent of all total inbound tourism, while the largest share of inbound tourists was aged between 25 and 44 (36.7 per cent), followed by the 45-64 age bracket (33.3 per cent).

Of the 132,513 tourists, 116,073 visited for holiday purposes, with 9,522 visited for business and professional reasons, and the remainder visited for educational, religious and health tourism.

According to the Malta International Airport, the first quarter of 2023 has been the busiest one yet, with a total of 487,117 passenger movements registered by the end of the March 2023.