Malta’s tourism industry has been steadily increasing over the past years and consistently reported higher visitor numbers. The numbers for February were recently published, and they show an 8.1% increase in visitors compared to the same month last year. The airport confirmed that this rise is the result of increased aircraft movements and seat capacity. Last year, more routes to Malta had been introduced, which reflects positively on the tourism industry. The airport hosted a total of 208,896 passengers in the month of February. The seat load factor also increased to 75.9%, compared to 72.5% in February last year.
The positive results show that passenger growth is steady and consistent over the year. Winter traffic is normally much slower than summer, but from between November 2014 to February 2015 it had gone up 5.1% compared to the same period from the year before. Especially traffic to and from Italy increased, as the newly introduced route to Catania attracted a lot of passengers. Traffic from and to France and Turkey has also grown significantly.
EasyJet recently announced that over 2 million passengers have already used their services to fly to Malta. EasyJet is one of the main airlines offering connections from the UK. The Minister for tourism, Edward Zammit Lewis, said in his statement that an appropriate and positive relationship with airlines is recognised by Malta, and it contributes positively to the performance in the long-term.
Malta establishes itself more and more as an attractive tourist destination. But it is not only tourists visiting the island, the increase in visitors is also due to the increase in international business that is carried out on the islands. The financial and iGaming sectors are growing, and more companies settle on the island – and they have a good reason to: Malta offers an interesting fiscal structure for international companies that move their business operations to Malta. If you would like more information about company incorporations in Malta, and find out if it would be something for you, you are welcome to read our blog section about company formations, or contact us directly for a personal consultation at our offices in Malta.
