Tourist spending hits €1.21 billion in Malta in second quarter of 2026

Tourists spent an estimated €1.21 billion in Malta during the second quarter of 2026, as visitor numbers continued to rise despite spending less time on the island.

According to Deloitte’s latest tourism survey for the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA), overall tourist expenditure increased significantly from the €1.06 billion during the same period last year.

Adjusted to calculate for inflation, expenditure increased by 12.5 per cent, from €1.0 billion to €1.17 billion. 

This increase followed a strong quarter for arrivals, with Malta welcoming around 1.33 million tourists between April and June, up from the 1.11 million recorded during the corresponding period of 2025. 

On a cumulative basis, tourist arrivals for the first half of 2026 reached over 2.1 million, up from 1.8 million in the first half of 2025. 

However, while more tourists are visiting Malta, they are staying for shorter periods, with the average length of stay per tourist declining from six nights in 2025 to 5.5 nights this year.

Deloitte said this reflects a broader global tourism trend towards shorter but more frequent holidays.

Shorter stays also meant that average expenditure per tourist fell from €949 to €913, or €936 to €882 when adjusted for inflation, despite the significant increase in overall expenditure.

The average spend per night increased from €158 to €166 per tourist, or from €155 to €160 after adjusting for inflation.

Deloitte’s survey also showed that collective accommodation (ie. hotels, guesthouses, hostels etc) increased its share of the tourist accommodation market from 53.5 per cent to 55.1 per cent. 

However, this was spurred mostly by a strong performance from three-star hotels, which increased their average bed occupancy from 84.5 per cent to 90.4 per cent between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026. 

Five-star hotels registered an average occupancy rate of 78.1 per cent during the second quarter, down slightly by 1.1 percentage points from a year earlier. Across the first half of 2026, however, occupancy edged upwards from 66.3 per cent to 67.2 per cent when compared to 2025. 

Four-star hotels recorded occupancy of around 87 per cent during the quarter, 2.2 percentage points below 2025 levels. First-half occupancy also declined, from 80.9 per cent last year to 77.9 per cent.

Average hotel room rates also continued to rise across all three categories – from €229 to €241 for five-star hotels, from €125 to €137 for four-star hotels, and from €92 to €94.5 for three-star hotels.