Cruise passenger traffic down 9% over August 2009

Cruise passengers in transit numbered 50,203, while those embarking from Malta stood at 1,290. On a gender basis, male passengers were slightly less than females and counted 26,306, or 49.8% of the total. Similar to last year, passengers fell mostly in the 40 to 59 age bracket (19,778) followed by the 0-19 age category (14,211). Together these two age groups made up 64.4% of total cruise passengers.

The majority of cruise passengers were from EU countries and stood at 41,582, or 78.7%, whereas those from Non-EU countries amounted to 11,234. As in 2009, the main European markets were Italy, Germany and Spain. Decreases were recorded amongst all these markets.

Non-EU markets recorded an increase of 16.0% in passengers. Most of these passengers were from the United States, and made up 53.9% of total Non-EU passengers. Maltese cruise passengers stood at 1,723, a significant decrease over last year's levels.

Total cruise passengers for the past eight months totalled 308,663, up by 24.0% when compared with last year, albeit the drop in August. The reason behind this upward move may be attributed to an increase in visitors from EU countries, especially from Italy which increased by 69.0%. On the other hand, Non-EU passengers dropped by 8.6% over 2009.

During this period there were 157 cruise liner calls, with an average of 1,966 passengers per vessel.

Just like the previous year, most of the passengers were aged between 40 and 59 and made up 33.7% of the total. Female visitors exceeded males by 5,627 and stood at 157,145.