Visitors to Malta from Ireland increased significantly during the first quarter of this year, according to figures from The Malta Tourism Authority.
The first three months of this year saw 9,600 people travel to Malta from Ireland. That was up from 6,517 for the first quarter of pre-Covid 2019 and 7,741 for the first quarter of 2020.
The success follows on from the new Ryanair route to Malta from Shannon Airport which was launched in March 2022. This is in addition to the Ryanair route from Dublin Airport.
Malta and Gozo had a total inbound visitor count of more than 440,000 visitors from January to March 2023. The total tourism spend in Malta and Gozo rose to €312.4m over these months. This rise in visitor numbers has exceeded records of comparison from the first quarter of 2019 of other European countries such as Poland, France and Italy.
With regards to cruise tourism, 21 cruise liners called at Malta during the first quarter of 2023. Over 70,000 passengers were recorded to call at the Grand Harbour according to the National Statistics Office, with 70% of traffic hailing from European countries.
The Malta Tourism Authority has also announced that it is investing to grow tourism further during the upcoming months. In the coming weeks, the VisitMalta brand will be featured around Giro d’Italia with on-the-field branding, online branding and media platform marketing. Additionally, MTA will be supporting future events, such as Isle of MTV, Nickelodeon, the BBC Orchestra, Robbie Williams concert, EuroPride Valletta.
Tolene van der Merwe, Director of the Malta Tourism Authority for the UK & Ireland said: “We are delighted to see such a positive increase in visitor numbers from Ireland to Malta for the first quarter of 2023. These figures indicate that people are really keen to travel in 2023. We are looking forward to welcoming more visitors from Ireland for what we are sure will be a very busy summer in Malta.”
The Chairman of the MTA, Dr. Gavin Gulia said: “This special quarter of record growth has reached new levels in more than one way: records in the number of arriving tourists, records in the number of nights stayed, records in tourism expenditure, and higher utilisation of existing capacity, and another record in off-peak tourism growth which all serve to make our achievement something worth commemorating.”
MTA chief executive Carlo Micallef said: “The success we are experiencing today is the fruit of the efforts of the Ministry for Tourism and the Malta Tourism Authority, together with the close collaboration of the stakeholders. The objective is to try and reach 2019 levels with higher quality tourism and more profitability for the industry; converting leads and sales; and creating and ameliorating partnerships in a bid to reach further audiences whilst promoting the VisitMalta brand to a wider range of destinations and segments.”
