The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) believes that indicative figures for September and October will result in further drops of another 20,000 tourists on last year's figures by the end of October.
The Association added that the drop will mean that instead of expanding tourist numbers by 50,000 during 2006, in the first 10 months of the year, the figures will result in a drop of 50,000 visitors.
"This would mean the government is 100,000 visitors short of the established target," it added.
The MHRA further reiterated that low-cost airlines are the only solution to the industry's problems. It added that the Malta is facing three problems, namely of product improvement, the lack of a solid marketing strategy and the lack of diversity in airline capacity mix including the strong introduction of low cost carriers to Malta.
The MHRA also said that it believes that the amount of routes made available and ultimately the three routes so far taken up by Ryan Air are far from being sufficient to turn the situation around.
The Association further said that unless more routes are opened up immediately to low-cost airlines, next year's figures will continue to decline.
On Wednesday, figures published by the National Statistics Office revealed that departures of incoming tourists were estimated at 164,302, implying a drop of 7.9% over the same month last year.
See also:
Incoming tourists decrease by 7.9% in August
By MaltaMedia News
Sep 27, 2006, 11:30 CET
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