65,000 more tourists in Malta in this year’s Q1

In the first quarter (January to March) of 2018, 65,000 additional tourists visited Malta compared to last year’s first quarter, according to the Deloitte-BOV Hotel and Restaurant survey.

The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) presented the survey’s results yesterday at a conference held at the Le Meriden Hotel St Julian’s, which highlighted seemingly strong growth in tourism but with a few exceptions of decreasing trends.

Germans comprised the highest proportion of tourists visiting Malta in the first quarter, at 11,000 tourists. Other leading nationalities visiting Malta were the British (10,000), Italians (9,000) and Poles (7,000).

Speaking at the conference, financial advisory leader at Deloitte Raphael D’Aloiso explained how whilst the current trend was overall positive for the industry, hotels suffered various dips in growth. Statistics revealed that five-star hotels experienced a 30 per cent decrease in gross operating profit (GOP) in this year’s first quarter compared to last year’s.

D’Aloiso explained that this was not completely surprising with Malta holding the EU presidency last year: “The EU presidency led to five-star hotels being the main beneficiaries with last year being some of the highest results.”

Overall, four-star and even threestar hotels fared better in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the five-star hotels.

NSO statistics of Q1 revealed an 18 per cent increase in tourist arrivals at private accommodation and collective accommodation overall. The duration of guest nights has also increased in this quarter for both private and collective accommodation, increasing by 18 per cent. Tourist expenditure compared to last year also showed an upturn of 14 per cent in both private and collective accommodation.

The ratio between tourists and Maltese for this winter season showed that 52 per cent of customers at restaurants were tourists with 48 per cent being Maltese. Furthermore, the discrepancy is even bigger for employees working in the industry with 56 per cent of employees being non-Maltese and 44 per cent being Maltese. Restaurants overall experienced a 42 per cent increase in revenue compared to last’s year’s quarter.

MHRA president Tony Zahra stated that the sector was experiencing strong growth however noted the importance of sustainability and responsibility of touristic sector was the next step. However, making reference to the study ‘Has Global Tourism reached its limits?’ conducted by IP World Tourism Monitor at ITB, Mr Zahra stated that figures showed that 24% of global destination management organisations reported that their destination was over-crowded and tat 37 per cent said it affected them negatively.

In light of this the MHRA president questioned what is sustainable for Malta as a tiny island and referred to the Austrian tourism strategy which is changing from that of counting numbers to increasing the quality of the tourist and maximising on the spend per tourist day.

In conclusion, Mr Zahra said that “those responsible for planning tourism must be careful to ensure that tourists and locals do not destroy what tourists have come to see.”

The discussion panel included the participation of CEO for The Institute of Tourism Studies Pierre Fenech, CEO of Identity Malta Anton Sevasta, Head of Division (Employment) at Jobs Plus Mario Xuereb and MHRA representative Peter Rieks.