VALLETTA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Malta's outbound tourism between April and June 2017 grew by 20.2 percent compared to the same period in 2016, data published by Malta's National Statistics Office revealed on Monday.
Increases were recorded in both EU and non-EU destinations, with Italy and the United Kingdom remaining the most popular EU destinations amongst the Maltese.
In fact trips to Italy and the United Kingdom alone amounted to a share of 49.5 percent of total tourist trips made.
The total nights spent by outbound tourists also increased by 23.4 percent.
The total estimated outlay increased by 22.9 percent over the same quarter of 2016, and stood at 108.4 million euros (128 million U.S. dollars), equivalent to an average 864 per trip.
Between January and June 2017, the increase in total outbound tourist trips over 2016 is 15.8 percent.
For this same period, outbound tourism nights went up by 15.5 percent, with the total outlay by resident outbound tourists 11.8 percent higher than that recorded for the same period in 2016.