As expected, thousands of Maltese residents crossed over to Gozo for the week of Santa Marija, with more than 7,700 people travelling to the sister island for the feast this year than last year, The Malta Independent has learned.

Figures seen by this newspaper show that 114,695 people travelled to Gozo between 10 and 16 August, which is 7,723 more than the 106,972 passengers who crossed over to Gozo during the same

period last year.

Gozo Channel Co. Ltd already operates an average of around 56 trips every day and in order to meet demand, the company had to run an extra eight trips in order to ferry passengers to Gozo. Between 10 and 16 August, Gozo Channel made 450 crossings in 2006 and 458 this year.

With regard to the number of cars, figures show that last year the company carried 25,296 cars to Gozo during Santa Marija week. This year, it carried an additional 1,306, bringing the total number of cars crossing over to Gozo to 26,602.

The Santa Marija week is a very busy one for restaurants, bars and places offering accommodation in Gozo. Several hotels reported that they were fully booked, and much of the self-catering accommodation was also fully booked during the week.

For those who do not own property in Gozo, renting accommodation can be quite expensive, with prices ranging from Lm30 to over Lm80 a night during the Santa Marija period.

While most Gozitans complain about the influx of visitors, the truth is that those who run businesses look

forward to this week. Restaurants – particularly those in Xlendi, Victoria and Marsalforn, hotels, flats and farmhouses are packed, as are the beaches on the island.

No major incidents were reported by the Gozo police and neither did we hear of any drug swoops on the island, as has usually been the case in previous years.

In fact, the arrests that were made on Santa Marija were in Malta.