Malta’s cruise passenger traffic surges by 21.6% in second quarter of 2024

Malta recorded 273,900 in total cruise passenger traffic in the second quarter of 2024 (Q2 2024), a rise of 21.6 per cent over the same period last year.

This was highlighted in data published on Tuesday (today) by the National Statistics Office (NSO).

Transit passengers, those passengers who arrive in and leave Malta on the same cruise ship, accounted for 81.8 per cent of total passenger traffic, reaching 223,990.

In total, there were 128 cruise liner calls during Q2 2024, representing an increase of 30 when compared to Q2 2023.

On average, every vessel that berthed in Malta carried 2,140 passengers, a decrease of 159 from the previous year.

Passengers from EU Member States made up 35.3 per cent of total passenger traffic, with the major market being Italy, which accounted for 10.3 per cent. This was followed by Germany with 8.6 per cent of total traffic.

The total number of passengers from non-EU countries stood at 177,150, 39.1 per cent of whom came from the US, while 35.6 per cent came from the UK.

54.2 per cent of total passengers were female. The largest share of passengers fell within the 60-79 bracket (42.5 per cent), with these being followed by those aged between 40 and 59 years (28.5 per cent).

As a result, Malta’s total cruise passengers for the first half of 2024 stood at 350,462, 41.3 per cent coming from EU Member States.

In line with the Q2 2024 findings, the majority of passengers for the first half of the year were females, totalling 188,641 or 53.8 per cent of the total, while most of the passengers were 60-79 years old.

There were 147 cruise liner calls in the first half of 2024, with an average of 2,384 passengers per vessel. While this represents an increase in the number of calls (first half of 2023: 119), it is also a sharp drop in passengers per vessel (first half of 2023: 2,498) from the same period last year.