2.8 million inbound tourist trips were registered last year, but the sector ground to a halt this year with the suspension of all passenger flights as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is believed that the pandemic could cost the country up to €3 billion in tourism revenue and lead to thousands of redundancies.

Zahra told this newsroom that it is difficult to predict tourist arrivals for 2021, but the best case scenario predicted by industry sources would place the totals for next year at around a third of last year’s numbers.

The Malta Independent asked Zahra whether he could confirm reports that several routes will be cut from the Winter 2020 and Summer 2021 flight schedules. He said that the association does not have any information to this effect.

Zahra added that it is very difficult to predict what routes could be axed and if flight frequencies would change, adding that Malta would have to adapt to the situation.

“If we manage to get 30% to 40% of last year’s numbers in the upcoming winter schedule, it would not be so bad,” Zahra said.

He added that those who think that things will go back to normal the day the airport reopens are “gravely mistaken.”

“This is not some annual shutdown where you pick up where you left off,” he said.

Zahra noted that there are many who are putting pressure on the authorities to keep the airport shut. “For sure, if the airport remains closed, there will be no flights and no passengers.”

The government said last week that it is discussing the possibility of opening ‘safe corridors’ with nine other countries that have kept their COVID-19 numbers low. These are: Luxembourg, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Israel.

The UK is also mulling the idea of ‘air bridges’, removing the 14-day quarantine requirement for people coming from ‘safe’ countries, while Italy has said it will open its airports on 3 June. It is unlikely, however, that Malta will consider re-launching flights to the two countries – even if they are Malta’s biggest tourism markets – given their high COVID-19 infection rates.

The idea of restarting flights has been met with fierce opposition by a number of social partners and medical associations, who say that the economy is being prioritised over public health.

On Thursday, the Medical Association of Malta (MAM) and UHM-Voice of the Workers said that Malta is now in the second Coronavirus wave and warned that the country could end up with the “worst statistics in the Mediterranean.”

Asked for a reaction, Zahra said he would not go into the medical argument but wanted to make an economic argument that everyone can understand.

“Imagine that tourism is a hosepipe attached to a water tap. This hosepipe feeds into other smaller pipes, a sort of irrigation system. These small pipes represent many sectors of the economy; airport shops, taxis, public transport, restaurants, hotels, bars and many more. At the end, there is something called ‘government taxes’ and these taxes finance things such as public healthcare and education. If you close the tap, there will be no water in any of the pipes. So how can you expect the flowers to live?”

Zahra said there has been a lot of talk about a “second, third, fourth or fifth wave, but the only thing that is certain is that if the hose remains closed, the economy will remain in a disastrous state.”

The post Most optimistic prediction by industry sources is 1.3 million tourists in 2021 – Tony Zahra first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

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.

Access to financing is vital to promote entrepreneurship and SME development and to build a competitive, innovative and sustainable tourism sector, the BOV press statement says. 

“The ability of tourism entrepreneurs to access finance required at each stage of their business lifecycle, coupled with the right financing conditions is crucial towards the success of this industry,” said Mark Scicluna Bartoli, Head of the EU & Institutional Affairs at Bank of Valletta.

“EU and Malta funded Guarantee instruments provide easier access to finance through reduced collateral requirements and finance costs”, added Mr Bartoli. “BOV Jaime and BOV SME Invest provide bank financing up to a maximum of €750,000, at attractive interest rates and reduced collateral obligations.” 

The final part of the workshop focused on an exchange of views with officials from Jobs Plus, the Ministry for EU Affairs and Equality, and Malta Enterprise how different EU and national funds can be combined to ensure maximum benefit for businesses in the hospitality industry. 

The post BOV, MHRA hold workshop focusing on funding tourism 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.

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The Malta Tourism Authority’s Executive Chairman, Gavin Gulia, welcomed the introduction of this new event as an opportunity for the Maltese Islands to promote their high level of wine production.

The Malta Public Transport Service will be operating on special routes while the Valletta Ferry will travel continuously from Valletta to Bormla. Moreover, Medasia Cabs will be offering discounts for those who travel to and from the event for each night, according to the press release. 

In addition, the Minister for Tourism Konrad Mizzi emphasized the recognition given to the Cottonera area with regards to high-quality events, thanking also the Institute for Tourism Studies.

Different winemakers and winery representatives welcome everyone to show their knowledge with samples of their job. Visitors can buy wine by the glass or by the bottle from over 100 international wines available at the wine experiences.

Short talks by professional sommeliers will take place in a designated area delivering the knowledge of wines. 

Furthermore, the festival is being created thanks to the Ministry for Tourism, The Malta Tourism Authority, Southeast Region, Cospicua Local Council, Kottonera Foundation, CocaCola and Frank Salt. 

The post Malta to host first International Wine Festival starting today first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The ministry with SUNx are aiming to take the lead in a global effort aimed at converting the threat of global climate change into an opportunity. The Global Centre for Climate Friendly Travel will launch measures accordingly. Malta will aim to deliver a number of initiatives designed to support the sector in its transformation, in collaboration with SUNx.

These initiatives and transformations include an annual review of the “Sector Climate Friendly Travel”, which will be published within the context of the United Nations General Assembly alongside the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit in September and will be circulated widely amongst industry players, as the DOI press statement says.

In addition, an annual Malta Think Tank and a Climate Friendly travel summit are planned, as well as a public/private collaboration to engage graduate trainees to help deliver transformation in the front line, entitled Plan for Our Kids to put 100,000 STRONG Climate Champions across all United Nations states by 2030

“There is a growing international consensus for a strong shift from talk to action. This is amply evidenced by the political action of the European Union in raising the stakes these past few weeks by announcing the allocation of 1 in every 4 euro of the next budget to climate resilience,” said Minister for Tourism Konrad Mizzi. “This initiative will put Malta at the forefront of this change in creating more climate-friendly travel. We will become the home of SUNx — the Strong Universal Network — a global centre for Climate Friendly Travel following the targets of the Paris Agreement set in 2015.”

SUNx Co-founder Professor Geoffrey Lipman noted that “The reality is that we have a Climate Crisis and that the scientists, the governments, and the next generation are demanding an increased ambition. Travel and Tourism is a pivotal part of human activity and has to be at the leading edge of change.”

“Our collaboration with the government of Malta will provide a new impetus through Climate Friendly Travel, Measured, Green, and 2050-proof: a pathway to the New Climate Economy and 100,000 STRONG Climate Champions by 2030 to help the transformation. This is carrying on the vision of Maurice Strong, the father of Sustainable Development, who believed that Travel and Tourism could be a catalyst for positive change,” Mr Lipman added.

The post Tourism ministry pledges to address climate change focussing on travel industry first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Inbound tourists from European Union member states amounted to 210,579 in April, up by 1.8% when compared to the corresponding month in 2018. Most of the tourists were aged between 25 and 44 (37.2%), followed by those within the 45-64 age bracket (32.1%).

Total nights spent went up by 2.6% when compared to April 2018, surpassing 1.5 million nights. The largest share of guest nights (58%) was spent in collective accommodation establishments.

The total tourist expenditure was estimated at €172.2m, with an increase of 7.7% over April 2018.

For the Q1 2019, inbound tourist trips amounted to 667,905, showing an increase of 3.1% over the Q1 2018. Total nights spent by inbound tourists went up by 3.7%, surpassing 4.3 million nights, according to the NSO press release.

Total tourism expenditure was estimated at €444.5m, 3.1% higher than that recorded for 2018. Total expenditure per capita stood at €666, at par with the same period of 2018.

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

Nevertheless, the number of total guests and nights spent in collective accommodation establishments in Malta decreased by 6.4% and 8.2%, respectively, during the first quarter of 2019 compared to the corresponding quarter in 2018.

The post Tourist numbers rise in April, NSO says first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The number of total guests was 372,210, while total nights spent reached almost 1.7 million in Q1 2019.

The average length of stay in collective accommodation establishments stood at 4.6 nights, same as the 2018 average, as the NSO press release says.

The net use of bed-places stood at 47.7%, down by 4.9 percentage points when compared to the Q1 /2018.

Malta had 190 active collective accommodation establishments with a net capacity of 17,723 bedrooms and 40,520 bed-places on a national level in March, according to the NSO press release.

Drops all around Malta

On a regional level, the percentage of total guests in Malta was down by 6.3% Q1 2019 over the first quarter of 2018. Additionally, a decrease of 7.9% was recorded in the number of nights spent, according to the NSO press release.

The average length of stay went down by 0.1 to 4.6 nights. Furthermore, the net occupancy rate in Malta decreased by 4.9%, reaching 48.6%, as the NSO press release says.

The number of guests and nights spent in Gozo and Comino decreased by 8.6% and 19.3%, respectively. The average length of stay, therefore, decreased by 0.3 to 2.4 nights, compared to the same quarter of 2018, according to NSO press release.

The net occupancy rate decreased as well by 5.3% to 25.9% over the same quarter of 2018.

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

The post Fewer guests spend less nights in Malta in Q1, NSO says first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Transit passengers accounted for the absolute majority of total traffic with a slice of 99.7% of the total; counting 77,85, NSO statistics show. However, every vessel that berthed in Malta carried an average of 3,717 passengers, which figure is 385 less than the previous year.

Passengers from European Union member states comprised 65.9% of the total traffic, with Italy, France and Germany being the main drivers. Some 19% of the total traffic was from the United States.

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