More people but fewer nights spent in hotels in first half of 2023 compared to same period 2019

More people stayed in collective accommodation establishments in the first half of 2023 than in the same period in 2019, but fewer nights were spent in them, figures issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO) show.

Total guests in collective accommodation during the first six months of 2019 in the Maltese islands amounted to 947,485, while total nights spent in such accommodation reached 4,466,939 that year.

In the first half of 2023, the number of guests was higher, standing at 1,039,848, but the total nights spent is far lower, standing at 4,316,202.

If one were to exclude collective accommodation establishments which aren’t hotels (such as guesthouses, hostels and tourist villages), and focus on hotels, the same situation holds true, that in the first half of 2023 there were more guests but less guest nights spent.

In the first half of 2023, the type of collective accommodation with most guests was four-star hotels, where 459,536 guests stayed for a total of 2,047,439 nights. Four-star hotels also had the most guests in the first half of 2019.

In June of this year there were there were 269 active collective accommodation establishments with a net capacity of 19,016 bedrooms and 43,555 bed-places in the country, the statistics show. This is more than the 250 of such establishments than were listed in the same month a year prior in 2022.

As for the second quarter of 2023 specifically, on a regional level, total guests in Malta numbered 601,680, up by 22.4% over the second quarter of 2022. Additionally, an increase of 16.9% was recorded in the number of nights spent, reaching 2,572,748 nights. Total guests in Gozo and Comino increased by 15.7% to 29,179, while nights increased by 17.4% to 84,004. When compared with the same quarter of the previous year, in Malta, the average length of stay went down by 0.2 of a night to 4.3 nights. In Gozo and Comino, the average length of stay went up by 0.1 of a night to 2.9 nights. The net occupancy rate in Malta increased by 10.1 percentage points, reaching 69.6%, and that in Gozo and Comino increased by 3.4 percentage points to 43.9% when compared to Q2 2022.