Recently there has been public discourse on the notion that we need to attract tourists from countries further away from Malta (out of Europe) as they are likely to spend more and be a higher quality of tourist.
I thus wanted to use all the data available to verify or otherwise this notion.
Taking 2019 as the base year one can see that as shown the below, the top 5 tourists in Malta that had the highest average expenditure originated from Australia, USA, Switzerland, Scandinavia and other countries.
However, the above includes the component of Air Travel fare as part of the total expenditure. If we were to calculate the expenditure, excluding the air fare, we would have the below results for 2019. This time round the top 5 tourists in Malta in 2019 that had the highest average expenditure (excluding air fare) originated from Australia, Switzerland, Scandinavia, USA and Ireland. A somewhat different result than when including air fare costs.
Doing the same for 2023 and 2024, produces the below outlined results. However, the below outlined results are based on real expenditure in 2023 and 2024, after eliminating inflationary effect by rebasing expenditure on the 2019 base year.
With regards 2023, as shown below, the top 5 tourists that had the overall highest average expenditure originated from Australia, USA, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Ireland.
On the other hand, when eliminating the air fare component, the results remained unchanged, as shown below, with the top 5 tourists that had the overall highest average expenditure (excluding air fare) originating from Australia, USA, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Ireland.
With regards 2024 the top 5 tourists that had the overall highest average expenditure, as shown below, originated from Australia, USA, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Netherlands.
On the other hand, when eliminating the air fare component, the top 5 tourists that had the overall highest average expenditure (excluding air fare) originated from Australia, Scandinavia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Ireland.
It is also interesting to gauge the real average expenditure per tourist in 2024 per country of origin and compare it to the same in 2019 to see what changes have occurred. As shown below, the top tourists which have shown the highest declines in the average expenditure per tourist between the real expenditure in 2024 and 2019 (excluding air fares), originated from Austria, Australia, Other countries, Switzerland, Italy and Poland.
On the other hand, as shown below, the top tourists which have shown the highest increases in the average expenditure per tourist between the real expenditure in 2024 and 2019 (excluding air fares), originated from Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia, Belgium and Germany.
In conclusion, as shown above, it is not a straightforward conclusion, that attracting tourists from far away destinations (out of Europe), will automatically mean that we would be attracting a higher quality tourist, especially when eliminating the air fare costs out of the equation. As shown above, tourists originating from Switzerland, Scandinavia and Ireland where many times amongst the tourists with the highest average expenditure.
It is also important to monitor changes over the years in the average expenditure of different tourists by country of origin. Whilst tourists from Australia have always topped the chart as the highest in average expenditure, they also topped the chart for the ones that had amongst the highest reduction in average real expenditure per tourist (excluding air fare) between 2024 and 2019. The same goes for tourists originating from Switzerland. On the other hand, tourists originating from Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland and Scandinavia topped the chart for the real increase in expenditure per tourist (excluding air fare) between 2024 and 2019.
This shows that to increase the overall real expenditure per tourist the overall tourism strategy needs to be based on the finer granular details as to the source market and the shifts happening there, as every detail has an impact. It is however clear, that more than distance, the determining factor with regards tourist expenditure is more related to the level of income at home of such tourists.
