In December last year, inbound visitors to the Maltese Islands, were estimated at 144,706, which was an increase of 17.9% on the previous year, the National Statistics Office said today.

123,721 of these tourist trips were for holidays, while a further 14,416 were made for business.

The NSO noted that visitors from Non-EU Member States went up by 23.4% when compared to the same period in 2018.

There was also and increase in the nights spent (15.1%) when compared to December 2018, surpassing 1.0 million nights.

The largest share of guest nights (47.1%) was spent in collective accommodation establishments, the NSO said.

During December the tourist expenditure was estimated at €98.3 million, an increase of 25.4%, over the same month in 2018.

Inbound tourist trips totalled nearly 2.8 million during 2019, this was an increase of 5.9% over 2018.

Total nights spent by inbound tourists during last year was also up, at 4.1%, surpassing 19.3 million nights.

Total tourism expenditure for 2019 was estimated at €2.2 billion, 5.7% than that recorded in 2018.

Total expenditure per capita stood at €807, a decrease of 0.2% when compared to 2018, the NSO said.

File photo by Alain Salvary

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