Vacationers choosing Malta rose by seven per cent in the first quarter
of this year compared to last, and gives vindication to the Maltese
hotels and holidays lobby who had urged the government to allow low cost
airlines to fly to the island.
The first three months of the
year are traditionally the quietest for the Malta holidays industry, and
is thought to reflect the year as a whole so far, with perhaps even a
close to ten per cent increase in tourism overall for 2007 compared to
2006.
The surprise among the statistics is where the tourists
have come from. Many people in the Malta holidays industry expected a
big increase in visitors from the UK, but visitor numbers have remained
static, as they have from Germany and France. The increase in visitors personalized jerseys
came from Russia, Sweden, Belgium and Italy. Good news comes not only
from the increase in tourist numbers, but also from the amount tourists
spend while on the island - some ten per cent higher than 2006.
Another
airline has joined the race for the flight to Malta market, putting
pressure on the low cost airlines already operating to Malta to further
reduce their prices to stay ahead of their competition, - all good news
for consumers and the Malta hotels and holidays industry.
But
unlike some of the airlines running operations to and from Malta, Click
Air will be flew in the peak holiday months of June to October, bringing
in around 12,000 tourists to the island, a fraction of the estimated
200,000 tourists anticipated during 2007 delivered by low cost airlines
as a whole.
Regular travellers to Malta have never had it so
good. Not only has their choice of airline and airports serving Malta
widened considerably, but the perennial favourite of many business and
holiday travellers, Air Malta, has fought back against the new low cost
airlines with reduced fares and offers of their own.
In their
traditional market of flights from the UK to Malta, the airline started a
new route from Liverpool's John Lennon airport in May this year,
serving the north-west of England, boosting the Malta holidays and hotel
occupancy levels.
The airline that first brought low cost
airlines to Malta has done well enough to start new routes to the
island. Ryanair, the Irish based low cost airline, were the first
airline to win the right to fly to Malta from the island's main markets
for tourism of Ireland and the UK.
The first route launched has
been running between London's Luton Airport since November 2006, while
the Dublin route had its inaugural flight in March this year. Both
routes have attracted good seat occupancy levels, with tourist numbers
in Malta rising.
The new route will run between personalized jerseys Bremen in Germany
to Malta and will be a welcome addition for Malta's attempt to attract
more German tourists to the island.
As part of their offensive to
retain current passengers and to tempt new ones to use the airline, Air
Malta are offering clients the opportunity to book flights in advance
for this winter with prices starting from around 20 Euros (around US
$25).
If successful the extra tourists for Malta in her off-peak
months will be a welcome boost for the island's hotels and holiday
trade, coming off the back of a summer that could see the ten per cent
rise in arrivals compared to last year achieved, building on the seven
per cent already reported for the first three months of 2007.
Britain's
favourite TV soap and the world's longest running drama, Coronation
Street, is also playing a part in boosting Malta, according to a UK
based Malta holidays guide. Aired in late July and early August, the
soap ran a storyline of two of Coronation Street's characters taking a
last minute holiday to the island. The episodes featured Eileen, played
by Sue Cleaver and Steve, played by Simon Gregson initially in the
capital Valletta, before heading to a hotel by the Mediterranean.
According
to the Malta travel guide the number of visitors to the travel guide's
internet site more than personalized jerseys doubled on the evenings immediately after the
episodes featuring Malta were screened compared to normal, and the
overall impact is still bringing benefits some months after the episodes
were first shown in the summer.
