Updated 7.58pm An estimated two million people are expected to have visited Malta throughout 2022, tourism authority CEO Carlo Micallef told a conference on Tuesday. The figure translates to 77 per cent of the pre-pandemic 2019 figures, Micallef said. Air seat capacity is also back to 78 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, with seat capacities from 18 countries - among them Poland, France, Bulgaria, Italy and the Netherlands - close to, or even exceeding 2019 capacity levels. And according to the latest data collected from airline websites, air seat capacity for the upcoming winter season is at 91 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, with the estimated number of inbound tourists reaching 1,240,000 between November and March, both months included. Reaching the two million annual total is likely to be considered a success by the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), given that back in May the authority had said that its target was to draw 1.8 million tourists to the island this year. That figure would be equivalent to tourist arrivals in 2015. In 2021 - a year racked by COVID-induced travel disruptions - Malta received just under one million tourists, while in 2020 it welcomed even fewer, at...
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