NEWS | Wednesday, 18 July 2007

May sees a 3.1 per cent decrease in Maltese tourists

FATTA adopts “wait and see attitude”

Sarah Attard Gialanze

Maltese citizens who travel abroad during the month of May are estimated at 21,201, hence a 3.1 per cent decrease is noticed when compared to the same month of last year. Of these 81.7 per cent of the Maltese tourists travelled by air.
Of the outbound Maltese tourists for May, 18,674 travelled to European Union destinations, the most popular being Italy and the United Kingdom.
Contacted for comment, President of FATTA Iain Tonna said that despite there being a decrease in outbound Maltese tourists in May, an increase in Maltese tourists occurred in the preceding months.
Tonna also said a shift in the travelling patterns of Maltese tourists is evident, and that many people chose to travel during June instead of May. He continued that a reason behind this was the sanctification of Dun Gorg Preca in Rome, when a substantial number of Maltese flocked to Rome.
Tonna added that one must look at the trend of the people going abroad rather than just focus on the decrease in one month. He also said that FATTA will await the statistics for June to be announced and then compare them with those of the previous months.
Asked to comment about the departure tax, Tonna said the Association opposes it and FATTA presented a proposal to the European Commission for the removal of the departure tax. The European Commission demanded explanations with regards to the tax and received unsatisfactory answers.
The departure tax might have also contributed to the decrease in outbound Maltese tourists in May, according to Tonna.
During the months of January to May 2007, the number of Maltese passengers departing by air and sea amounted to 86,689, revealing an increase of 4.2 per cent over the same period last year.
During this period, male outbound passengers exceeded female ones, with the former accounting for 62.6 per cent of the total.
The majority of Maltese passengers travelling abroad within the last five months fall under the 25 to 44 years old category, with 47.3 per cent of the total number of passengers. 38.1 per cent of the total Maltese travellers are between the ages of 45 and 64.