The largest share of the increase was registered by public libraries in the Western district, which had a year-on-year increase of 36.6%. 

The public libraries of Ħad-Dingli, Ħ’Attard, and Mtarfa reported the main growths at the rates of 74.3%, 52%, and 48.3%, respectively while the public libraries of Senglea, Ta’ Kerċem and Kalkara registered the highest drops in book loans with 48.2%, 27.9%, and 18.4%, respectively. 

In addition, book acquisitions dropped by 20.9% (36,369) when compared to 2017. Book donations and book purchases to public libraries were also down by 28.5% and 11.9%, respectively. Nevertheless, the acquisition of ebooks grew.

The number of new members in public libraries was up by 22.4% to 6,266, chiefly boosted by people under the age of 18, which age group was represented by 65.5%. 

Furthermore, the number of books and periodicals received by the National Library of Malta under legal deposit increased by 29.9% over the previous year. The share of periodicals accounted for 70.9% of these deposits.

Both imports and exports of printed book material and periodicals declined during 2018 and stood at €12 and €4.7m, respectively. 

In 2018, The value of imports went down by 9.8% while exports fell by 13.5%. Moreover, the private final consumption expenditure on printed material reported a decrease of 0.1 percentage point.

The complete report with charts and graphs is available to download at the NSO website.  

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The cinemas employed an average of 174 people, 83.5% on a part-time basis. 

Furthermore, in Malta and Gozo, there were 450 films projected and they registered a total of 839,931 admissions in 2018. In addition, the total screenings amounted to 45,011 with an average of 100 screenings per film. 

The 91.5% of customers have watched films from the US and Maltese productions attracted 2.1% of the total number of admissions.  

Furthermore, 3D movies accounted for 11.8%, while 87.2% of admissions were for non-3D films. Moreover, 292 fiction films amounted to 292, attracting 77.3% of people. On their part, animation films amounted to 49 and attracted 19.8%.

Mercury’s life rules 2018

The most popular movies were “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” and “Johnny English Strikes Again”, the NSO press release says.  

Freddy Mercury and his life story attracted, in fact, 8.2% of the total admissions, while “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” and “Johnny English Strikes Again” engaged 5.8% and 5%, respectively. 

In terms of age classification, 33.8% of the films were rated as 15 while 18.9% 12A, which means they were suitable for children aged 12 and over. Only 2.2% were rated as 18+.

Focusing on running time, 62.4% of the movies fell within the 76 to 120 minutes bracket. These were followed by durations of 121 to 180 minutes, amounting to 27.3%. 

On the one hand, the “Live/Encore” type of shows which includes operas, ballets, and theatre, had the longest-running time with an average of 165 minutes. On the other hand, animation films were the shortest with an average of 91 minutes.

The full report with charts and tables is available for download at the NSO website. 

The post Maltese titles generate €97,000 in local cinemas first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The overwhelming majority of inbound tourist trips (95.7%) accounted for single-centre inbound tourism, with the rest being twin-centre destination trips.

Total nights spent by inbound tourists in Malta was up by 12.5% to 18.6 million in 2018, as compared to the preceding year.

Total expenditure by inbound tourists reached an estimate of €2.1b in 2018, increasing by 8% as compared to the preceding year. Expenditure by inbound tourists on single-centre destination trips accounted for 94.9% of the total.

Domestic tourism drops

However, domestic tourism in 2018 across regions stood at 245,477 total arrivals, showing a decrease of 5.9% when compared to 2017. Malta residents travelling to Gozo and Comino region totalled 227,121 (92.5%) of total domestic tourists, as the NSO press release says. 

Domestic tourist nights totalled 650,037, a decrease of 8.2% over 2017. Total expenditure by domestic tourists was estimated at almost €41m, with a drop of 5.8% when compared to the previous year.

The full report including charts and visual representation of data is available for download at the website of NSO.

The post Malta’s inbound tourism grows 14.3%, while domestic drops 5.9% in 2018 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.