VALLETTA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Malta this year completely recovered the number of tourists lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Robert Abela said here on Wednesday.
2023 was a record year for the Mediterranean island, even surpassing 2019 numbers of tourists, Abela said at a conference organized by the Malta Observatory for Tourism.
According to World Tourism Organization figures published last week, global tourism will have made about a 90 percent recovery of pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year, while European tourism will have reached a 94 percent recovery. Malta's recovery has been stronger than the average, Abela said.
According to figures issued by Malta's National Statistics Office on Monday, in the first 10 months of this year, about 2.6 million tourists visited Malta. Meanwhile, total tourism expenditure for this period was estimated at 2.4 billion euros (2.6 billion U.S. dollars). In October alone, total inbound tourists reached 313,705, an increase of 31.1 percent compared to the corresponding month of 2022. ■
