Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said yesterday that for the fifth month running this year, the number of visiting tourists had gone up, with National Statistics Office figures showing a rise in May of 6,287, or 6.1 per cent.

The first five months this year were the best five months in the past five years, with 384,383 tourists showing an increase of 21,691 tourists, or six per cent. Expenditure in the first five months was Lm130.6 million, or Lm6.2 million more than in the same period last year.

Dr Zammit Dimech said the higher arrivals figures were the result of various measures the government and the Malta Tourism Authority had taken to improve the product, to promote Malta better abroad and to have enough seats on aircraft to meet demand.