Maltese are the second highest spenders in EU when on holiday

Maltese people are the second highest spenders when on holiday, according to the latest Eurostat statistics.

The statistics for the year 2016 show that the average expenditure per trip, for people spending at least one night abroad for leisure or with family and friends, Maltese spent on average a total of €645.68. This amount is only lower (in terms of EU countries) than Luxembourgish residents who spent an average of €767.77 in total.

The lowest spenders come from Romania and Latvia, who spend on average €124.76 and €107.62 respectively in total.

On average in the EU, residents spent around 336 Euro per holiday trip in 2016.

More recent Maltese National Statistic Office data shows that inbound tourist trips for the first six months of 2018 (January to June) reached 1,162,344, and that total tourist expenditure was estimated at €840.9 million, 11.6 per cent higher than that recorded for the same period of 2017. Total expenditure per capita stood at €723, a decrease of 5.0 per cent when compared to 2017.

In terms of accommodation locally, In the first quarter this year total guests in collective accommodation establishments numbered 397,518, while total nights spent amounted to 1,848,171.

The largest share of guest nights was reported in 4-star hotels, accounting for 937,426 nights. The average length of stay in collective accommodation establishments went down to 4.6 nights in the first quarter of 2018 from the average of 4.8 nights registered during the same quarter of 2017. During March 2018, there were 184 active collective accommodation establishments with a net capacity of 17,655 bedrooms and 39,843 bed-places on a national level.