Last Updated on Thursday, 17 August, 2023 at 9:39 pm by Andre Camilleri
49% of people living in Malta who planned a trip this summer had a budget of €1,000 or less, data obtained via MaltaSurvey shows.
The survey is the first to be carried out following an agreement signed by Standard Publications Limited and IDEA Intelligence, which administers maltasurvey.com, to develop periodic national surveys on politics, current affairs and other subjects of public interest.
Standard Publications is the publisher of The Malta Independent on Sunday, The Malta Independent (daily), The Malta Business Weekly and www.independent.com.mt
IDEA Intelligence is a data-driven business intelligence wing of the IDEA Group that aims to deliver thorough quantitative insights and information through sophisticated data.
The survey, titled Malta Summer Sentiment 2023, was carried out between 1 and 5 August, and partly focused on some of the major issues that are affecting people in their day to day lives.
Methodology
The online survey targeted people aged between 16-70 years of age. An online invitation was sent on social media platforms and all participants opted to voice their opinion voluntarily. Data gathering was administered solely by MaltaSurvey.com without input from The Malta Independent. While the sample is fully anonymous, demographic variables were utilised in the first section to keep control of the representativeness of the sample. The National Statistics Office census was used to establish the required proportions of the sample by gender, age and region. After collecting the sample, the cases were weighted by the same three variables (gender, age and region) to ensure a close representation of the sample.
With a sample size of 950 participants, the findings have a margin of error of 3% at a 95% confidence level.
This survey was intentionally based on a four-point scale, thus leading respondents to make a clear choice rather than opting for a non-conclusive answer.
Results
Respondents were asked for their level of budget for holidays abroad and local holidays this summer.
48% said €1,000 or less, 27.1% said between €1,001 to €2,000, 12% said between €2,001 to €3,000 and 12.9% said more than €3,000.
Participants were also asked whether this budget is higher than their budget the previous summer. The largest cohort (32.4%) said it is the same, 24.9% said it is more, 21.9% said it’s less and 20.8% weren’t sure.
The survey participants were also asked three separate questions, whether this summer they took or are planning to take an overseas holiday, whether they took or are planning to take a local holiday and whether they have or are planning to visit Gozo.
62.6% answered yes to an overseas holiday, which is higher than the percentage of those who said yes to a local holiday.
31.6% said no to an overseas holiday and 5.9% said they weren’t sure.
Half of the sample showed no intention of having a local holiday (50.1%) this summer. 40.5% said yes to having had or are intending to have a local holiday and 9.5% of the sample was undecided on the matter.
48.3% said yes to planning to visit or having already visited Gozo this summer. This segment of the holiday categories also has the highest rate of uncertainty at 14.7%. 37% said no to visiting the island this summer.
The survey also asked respondents to rate a number of issues.
Both salaries and Malta’s cost of living are given a “poor” rating by the majority in this sample.
When it comes to salaries and salary structures, 59.7% of respondents rated them as “poor”, 29.8% rated them as “fair”, 10.1% said they’re “good” and less than 1% gave an “excellent” rating.
In terms of the cost of living, 73% of respondents rated it as “poor”, with less than 1% rating it as “excellent” and 4.7% rating it as “good”, 21.9% rated it as “fair”.
As for employment conditions, things are slightly better and the majority sentiment is between a “fair” and “poor”.
38.9% of respondents rated employment conditions as “fair” while 38.4% rated them as “poor”, 20.9% said they are “good” and 1.8% said they are “excellent”.
As for population size, 83% of the sample gave it a “poor” rating, followed by 12.7% rating it as “fair” and 4.3% rating it as “good”. Just 0.1% gave it an “excellent” rating, meaning they are not concerned with the rising population in Malta.
Another issue that is clearly a point of concern is traffic.
86% of survey respondents gave traffic levels and traffic flow a “poor” rating, while only 11.6% rated it as “fair” and 2.4% gave it a “good” rating. When it comes to road works, the majority also rated them as “poor”, but the magnitude of this was substantially lower than that of the traffic levels and flow in Malta. 64.8% gave a “poor” rating of their perspective of the road works process in Malta, with 22.7% giving a “fair” rating, 11.1% giving a “good” rating and 1.4% rated the road works process as “excellent”.
The survey also asked about electricity provision. The survey took place soon after the country experienced a series of power cuts in the midst of a major heatwave, which has a high chance of swaying social sentiments in surveys of this manner. The majority of respondents gave a “poor” rating to the country’s electricity provision, at 66.9%; 20.8% of all respondents rated it as “fair”, 10.8% as “good” and 1.7% as “excellent”.
A positive element in the survey was Malta’s healthcare system – 41.3% rate the system as “good” while 14.5% rate it as “excellent”. That means that a combined 55.8% are happy with the quality of the country’s healthcare system. 28.4% of respondents rate the quality of healthcare as “fair” but not good, while 15.9% gave it a “poor” rating.
