The holiday industry on the small Mediterranean island of Malta was saved by the entry of low-cost airlines, which just five years ago made the situation worse for an island that today has an active tourism sector.
With higher fares than other Mediterranean islands, the number of holidays to Malta had been declining for a few years, but finally the authorities gave in to the inevitable and allowed Dublin-based Ryanair to start flights to Malta, and the island became has benefited from the increase in visitors. numbers ever since.
Now other airlines are flying into the island’s Luqa airport, including two from the UK, easyJet and bmi, not only from major UK airports like Gatwick, but also from Bournemouth, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, with good news for travelers. tourists in Northern Ireland Ireland that easyJet will start a service to Belfast in 2011.
The good news for non-residents of the opening of the skies to low-cost airlines is a greater choice of flights to Malta for tourists, with more choice of departure times and which airport to fly from, as well as lower fares.
And while the UK market is the biggest for its holiday industry, more tourists are coming from elsewhere as airlines have opened more routes from other European cities, diversifying the tourism mix, becoming less dependent on British visitors and increasing the number net of people spend money on hotels, shops, and other vacation-related businesses.
The new routes include Milan and Rome in Italy, Barcelona, Madrid, Marseille, Seville, Stockholm, Valencia and Venice, allowing Spaniards, French, Italians and Swedes to be more likely to consider Malta for a week or two.
All very good news for the vacation industry. But it’s not just the lower airfares that vacationers benefit from, as Malta’s flag carrier is winning awards for excellence, while lowering its own fares to compete with low-cost carriers.
This summer a passenger satisfaction survey conducted by the influential magazine Which? resulted in Air Malta being voted one of the best, along with Swiss Air, while the low-cost airlines were much less successful, certainly for flights from Switzerland and Malta.
It is quite a fait accompli for the island’s national airline. As a small nation with a population of less than 450,000, there were justifiable concerns that the airline might go bankrupt as rival low-cost carriers slashed fares. But Air Malta not only competed well on price, but also provided a service that other, much larger airlines cannot match in standards.
Along with the good hotels that Malta has to offer, the island is now attractive not only for those who are considering a two-week vacation in the sun, but also for those tourists who want to visit it for a long weekend. Increasingly, spa hotels are an attraction, and some of the hotels have won awards for excellence this year, adding to their reputation with tourists from Britain, Ireland and mainland Europe.
The capital city is Valletta, and the main cities where people vacation in Malta are St Paul’s Bay, St. Julians and Mellieha. Mellieha has the best sandy beach and many people who take villas instead of staying in a hotel choose to stay. there, with the Santa Maria Estate gaining a reputation for its villas.
Taking a flight can be stressful and set a poor tone for the rest of the trip, but if you want your vacation to start from the moment you leave your home country, it may be worth selecting Malta as your destination.