As Business Malta reported earlier, the number of guest nights spent in rented accommodation establishments — such as Airbnb — have been growing at a much faster pace this year than that of spent in collective accommodation establishments, such as hotels. The tendency resembles international trends; rented accommodation establishments essentially appearing to lure over customers from hotels.

The most recent figures published by the NSO show that rented accommodation growth in terms of guest nights have continued to expand aggressively in August, further narrowing the gap to collective accommodation establishments, as the cover image in this article shows.

Total nights spent reached nearly 2.9 million, up by 5.8%. Nevertheless, figures by the NSO reveal that the difference between rented and collective accommodation establishments shrank below 300,000 nights in August. Beyond expenditure and traveller figures, the index of guest nights is probably the most important numeric that hotel managers look at.

Furthermore, in August, to little surprise, the number of inbound tourists peaked at an estimated 338,758, growing by 6.7% as compared to the same month a year earlier, with the vast majority of travellers arriving in the island nation to enjoy their holiday sojourn in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Since the beginning of the year, a total of 1,848,935 travellers are estimated to have arrived in Malta by the end of August, a 4.7% growth over the same period a year earlier. Figures reveal a strong start for the second half of the year that raises optimism for last year’s 2.6 million inbound tourists to be exceeded. These figures compare to the approximately 460,000 population of Malta.

The increasing number of inbound tourists have been accompanied by rising expenditure. August alone saw an estimated €329.6m spent in Malta, a year-on-year increase of 2.8%.

By the end of August, inbound tourists are estimated to have spent more than €1.5b since the beginning of the year; an increase of 3.9% as compared to the same period a year earlier.

EDITORIAL NOTE: The present article is based on figures published by Malta’s National Statistic Office (NSO). Publications used in the present article are of Inbound Tourism in 2019 for January, February, March, April, May, June, July and August.

The post Malta’s rented accommodation guest nights narrowing gap further first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The growing number of inbound tourists, and figures suggesting that holidaymakers are spending more when in Malta paint a rosy picture for the tourism industry as a whole. Nevertheless, a hotelier in Malta will spend more time analysing the number of nights inbound tourists spend in the island nation, which figure might have been of elevating concern for hotel managers lately.

Although the overall number of nights spent by inbound tourists has grown every month in the first half of 2019 as compared to the respective corresponding month in 2018 — with the exception of May where a slight fall was recorded —, according to figures published by the National Statistics Office (NSO), the number of nights spent at rented accommodations — such as Airbnb — have been cutting an increasingly bigger slice of the pie, quite possibly making collective accommodation establishments — in their common name: hotels — losing out on consumers.

The first glimpse taken at the chart above outlines the summer peak season very well. The blue lines stand for collective accommodation establishments, while the red lines stand for rented accommodation establishments, showing the number of nights spent each month in 2019, based on figures published by the NSO in its monthly reports.

The percentages show the year-on-year changes per month, calculated by Business Malta, as NSO did not calculate changes in some of its monthly reports due to “absolute and percentage changes between one survey estimate and another based on less than 1,500 tourists should be treated with caution.” As such, the figures above might not be exact, but the tendency they signal is an intriguing one.

Rented accommodations cutting bigger night pie

Calculations by Business Malta based on NSO figures show that while hotels have been struggling to increase the number of nights spent by tourists at their premises in the first half of 2019, rented accommodations have been able to sharply increase their take up. Hotels have seen numbers of spent nights falling year-on-year by 10.4% (January), 7% (February), 1% (March), 10.3% (May) and 3% (July), hardly off-set by the growth of 1.1% and 1.98% in April and June, respectively.

Meanwhile, rented accommodations appeared to be striving during the first half of the year. The beginning of the year saw year-on-year growths of 56.4% and 34.7% in January and February, respectively, according to calculations by Business Malta using the figures of NSO, only to be followed by further growths of 12.5% (March), 17% (April), 6.3% (May), 15.3% (June) and 0.04% (July).

Such trends in Malta signalled by the most recent figures appear to be in synchrony with international tendencies. End-2016 research by Morgan Stanley showed that 36% of travellers having loyalty programme membership to established hotels said they had tried Airbnb, compared to 15% of non-loyalty holidaymakers, according to a Quartz report.

“This is yet another sign of Airbnb’s success in commanding the travel space, as it rolls out additional offerings in order to keep users engaged with the platform beyond one-off bookings. Airbnb is stealing hotel chains’ most valuable customers,” the Business Insider concluded in its report at the end of 2016.

Upon quick research into accommodations available in Malta on Airbnb’s platform — although the significant majority of the availabilities range from €9 to €262 per night with an average of €91 — one can find luxury villas with private swimming pools in picturesque settings available for €300-€1,000+ per night for 4-16 guests in October, maintaining the probability of stealing consumers from luxury or other high-end hotels.

Whether the figures above signal the beginning of changing consumer habits or just a haphazard fad is hard to tell for the time being. Nevertheless, with Malta seeing new boutique hotels recently added to and renovations being carried out at its shores, collective accommodation establishments might well feel disruption by the so-called sharing economy — a system where assets or services are shared between private individuals utilising the internet, and increasingly: quickly responding and easy-to-use mobile applications.

More tourists spending more money

During the first half of the year, the number of inbound tourists arriving in Malta was on an increase, albeit the peak season not appearing to stand out as compared to March and April. Still, the number of inbound tourists has been on the increase in recent years, up by 14.3% to 2.6 million in 2018, as compared to the preceding year.

Starting from an estimated 127,723 in January, in July 305,588 holidaymakers are thought to have arrived in Malta. Both June and July saw the biggest year-on-year increase; more than 5%, respectively.

The estimated number of inbound tourists totals slightly more than 1.5 million by the end of July. All eyes are on the second half of the year in anticipation whether last year’s 2.6 million can be topped, nearing the glass ceiling of 3 million. These figures compare to the approximately 460,000 population of Malta.

Expenditures by tourists arriving in the island nation have been on a steep climb in the first half of the year, too, with July peaking the per month expenditure in 2019 so far.

January’s estimated monthly expenditure of €84.7m reached €285.0m in July. This spurred the total estimated amount of expenditures in Malta in the first half of the year to peak above €1.2b.

As expenditures by inbound tourists exceeded €2.1b in 2018, the H1 figures for this year appear to be strong enough to fuel further optimism in the tourism sector as 2019 readies for the second half of the year and the post-summer season.

EDITORIAL NOTE: The present article is based on figures published by Malta’s National Statistic Office (NSO). Publications used in the present article are of Inbound Tourism in 2019 for January, February, March, April, May, June and July.

The post Hotels in Malta losing out on tourist nights to rented accommodations first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The meeting was the first outside of the United Kingdom and it happened as a result of Conventions Malta’s professional relationship with the HBAA.

HBAA is the trade association for the hotel booking agency, apartment and venue community and has more than 300 member organisations including over 80 agency and 225 venue members who work collaboratively in the accommodation, meetings and events sector.

Therefore, directors and managers participated in order to share insights on issues that agencies are facing in the industry. A number of talks and panels were held during the event.

The HBAA also held a session for the local trade, where Angie Mason, Chair of the association and Juliet Price, Consultant Executive Director, talked about meeting spends and trends and the agency market place in the United Kingdom. Peter Vella, Director for Malta Tourism Authority United Kingdom and Ireland introduced all the speakers. 

The guests had the opportunity to visit numerous cultural spots and MICE venues of Malta. 

In addition, private dinners were included in some of the locations, such as the Courtyard of Vilhena Palace in Mdina and a cultural tour of Valletta. The agents also participated in a Rolling Geek tour of the Three Cities followed by a typical meal from the 18^th century served at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, as the press release says.

“I thought our hosts were superb, they went out of their way in their own time to look after us and made sure we saw as much as possible that Malta has to offer for our clients. I will definitely return and hopefully we will have business to place there in the future,” said Sian Sayward from Inntel, Chair of the HBAA Membership Committee.

“Malta is a fabulous value for money Mediterranean destination and flight/airport plans will be a tremendous help to sell as a destination,” commented Jo Egan from, Hotel Desk.

The post Malta hosts 1st international HBAA Agency Engagement Retreat first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The group is planning to invest in the construction of offices and hotels, teaming up with local market players, “after the due diligence of various assets is completed,” the press statement says.

“We expect two new projects in Ukraine this year and are entering the fifth market outside of Germany, Poland, Spain, and Malta. This will contribute to the further growth and development of the country,” said Sven von der Heyden, the head of the group.

Von der Heyden Group has been present in the European real estate market since 1989 in four areas: investment in real estate, development, the international hotel group IBB Hotel Collection, as well as alternative investments.


The post Developer Von der Heyden Group eyes Ukrainian market first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Malta International Airport issued a call for offers for the provision of architectural and engineering services for this building and prospective bidders expected submit an initial design concept for SkyParks 2 by 13 February.

“In line with the company’s strategy of investing further in its retail and property segment, the mixed-purpose building is planned to house office and commercial space, as well as introduce a business hotel in the proximity of the terminal,” the press statement says.

The planned 1,400 sqm four-star hotel could enable primarily business travellers to maximise their time in Malta, according to the airport. A separate invitation for tenders issued at a later stage will form part of the selection process of an operator for this hotel.

“SkyParks 2’s initial design concept is required to include conceptual elements geared at achieving energy efficiency and rendering the building eligible for BREEAM assessment and subsequent certification,” the press statement says.

Construction works would launch once MIA re-assesses the feasibility of this project following the ideation stage and finalises its ongoing multi-storey car park project, which could wind up by 2020.

The precursor of Malta International Airport’s next development – SkyParks Business Centre reached full occupancy shortly after its inauguration.

The post Malta airport earmarks €40m for SkyParks 2 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.