Inbound tourism in May 2023 eclipses past records

The number of tourists arriving to Malta keeps hitting new highs in 2023, with a record-high number of 286,681 inbound tourists in May, beating the pre-COVID-19 record from 2019 of 265,701, an upswing of 7.9 per cent.

Data made available by the National Statistics Office (NSO) shows that in May 2023 a total of 257,059 tourists visited Malta for holiday purposes, 16,857 visited for business purposes and the rest visited for medical, educational and religious reasons.

Compared to the previous year, the total number of tourists in May 2023 increased by 25.6 per cent, total nights spent increased by 24.1 per cent and expenditure increased by 36.1 per cent.

In May, a total of 1,678,200 nights were spent by tourists in Malta, with the overwhelming majority of tourists having opted to spend their nights in rented accomodation (86.8 per cent).

The average length of stay stood at 5.9 nights, marginally below the 6.1 nights average of the previous year.

Total tourist expenditure rose to €237.8 million, with average expenditure per capita increasing to €835 from €790 year-on-year.

This indicates that in 2023, tourists had slightly shorter stays, however, they spent more money for each day spent in Malta than they did in 2022.

The largest share of inbound tourists was aged 25 to 44 years old (41.5 per cent) followed by those aged 45 to 64 years old (30.4 per cent).

Tourists from the UK and France continued to dominate, representing 47.1 per cent of all arrivals.

During the first four months of 2023, the total number amounted of inbound tourists Malta received was 994,804.

In total, tourists have thus far contributed €750.3 million to the economy so far in 2023, having spent an average of €754 each.

By this time in 2019, the total number of inbound tourists was 935,965, almost 60,000 less than in 2023. If this trend persists through the summer, Malta is set to have a new all-time record for the number of tourists received in a single year.