Nearly 63% of people planned a holiday abroad this summer, which was a higher percentage than those who said they planned a local holiday, data obtained via MaltaSurvey shows.
The survey is the first to be carried out following an agreement signed by Standard Publications Limited and IDEA Intelligence, which administers maltasurvey.com, to develop periodic national surveys on politics, current affairs and other subjects of public interest.
Standard Publications is the publisher of The Malta Independent on Sunday, The Malta Independent (daily), The Malta Business Weekly and www.independent.com.mt
IDEA Intelligence is a data-driven business intelligence wing of the IDEA Group that aims to deliver thorough quantitative insights and information through sophisticated data.
Methodology
The survey, titled 'Malta Summer Sentiment 2023', was carried out between 1 and 5 August.
The online survey targeted people aged between 16-70 years of age. An online invitation was sent on social media platforms and all participants opted to voice their opinion voluntarily. Data gathering was administered solely by MaltaSurvey.com without input from The Malta Independent. Whilst the sample is fully anonymous, demographic variables were utilised in the first section to keep control of the representativeness of the sample. The National Statistics Office' census was used to establish the required proportions of the sample by Gender, Age and Region. After collecting the sample, the cases were weighted by the same three variables (Gender, Age and Region) to ensure a close representation of the sample.
With a sample size of 950 participants, the findings have a margin of error of 3% at a 95% confidence level.
This survey was intentionally based on a four-point scale, thus leading respondents to make a clear choice rather than opting for a non-conclusive answer.
The results of this survey were divided up into two parts, with the first part being published in yesterday's edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday, showing the peoples' sentiments on different aspects of life in Malta. The other part of the survey, which focused on the public's holiday intentions, destinations and overall budgeting, is being published today.
Results of survey
The survey participants were asked three separate questions, whether this summer they took or are planning to take an overseas holiday, whether they took or are planning to take a local holiday, and whether they have or are planning to visit Gozo.
62.6% answered yes to an overseas holiday, which is higher than the 40.5 percentage of respondents who said yes to a local holiday.
31.6% said no to an overseas holiday and 5.9% said they weren't sure.
For the sake of definition, MaltaSurvey considers a holiday as a period of time of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home or travelling. Whilst a holiday when considering foreign travel is self-explanatory, one can also spend time away from home or away from the workplace without crossing any international borders, which is what local holidays refers to.
Half of the sample showed no intention of having a local holiday (50.1%) this summer, 40.5% said yes to having had or intending to have a local holiday, and 9.5% of the sample was undecided on the matter.
48.3% said yes to planning to visit or having already visited Gozo this summer. This segment of the holiday categories also has the highest rate of uncertainty at 14.7%. 37% said no to visiting the island this summer.
Every age group showed a preference towards overseas holidays. However, while between the years of 17 and 40 the gap between those who visit Gozo and those taking a local holiday is wider, with more saying yes to visiting Gozo than to a local holiday, this gap diminishes from 41 and over.
In fact, amongst the ages between 61 and 70, a local holiday is preferred over a trip to Gozo.
Participants were also asked for their main destination of choice for their overseas holiday this summer. The most popular destination was Europe (60.7%). 35.2% of the sample said they had not planned a holiday thus far. Asia, North America, South America, Africa and Australia all had less than 2% of preferences.
As for the duration of holidays, be they local or overseas, the most popular duration amongst participants is having a full week holiday (23.9%). The second highest percentage of such respondents said for more than a week (20.3%). 19.3% said five days and 5.3% said a weekend. 31.1% said they have no holiday planned yet.
As for the budget for holidays, the majority of respondents (48%) said €1,000 or less. This was followed by 27.1% who said between €1,001 and €2,000. The rest were over this amount.
Participants were asked if their budget is more, the same or less than the previous summer. The majority, 32.4%, said it's the same, 24.9% said it's more and 21.9% said it's less. The rest weren't sure.
Other results were published yesterday