Islands of fun! Entertainment contributes more to Maltese economy than to any other in Europe

Malta’s arts, entertainment and recreation sector makes up 16.9 per cent of the value added in the country’s economy, a remarkable figure that is over four times the 3.7 per cent it contributes to second-placed Slovakia’s economy.

The finding is the result of the first ever publication by Eurostat that looks into the structural business statistics of the sector, which in 2021 – the year under review – accounted for 0.9 per cent of the value added created by the EU’s business economy, amounting to €86.5 billion.

That propertion of value added is actually even less than the employment in the sector, which accounts for 1.3 per cent of all people employed in the business economy, working in one of 894,000 enterprises representing 2.9 per cent of the total.

The picture locally could not be more different, with the sector providing 5.3 per cent of the jobs available, ahead of Denmark (2.6 per cent) and Spain (2.3 per cent).

The lowest shares of employment in arts, entertainment and recreation sector in the business economy total were registered in Luxembourg (0.4 per cent), Poland (0.5 per cent) and Czechia (0.8 per cent).

Malta’s stark divergence from the rest of the EU is due to its role as an iGaming hub, with 98 per cent of the value added coming from online gambling, as explained in the methodological notes accopanying the statistics.