Malta

Holidays by Destination Europe Malta Tour Operators 

A number of five-star hotels have been built on Malta in recent years, and an extensive ‘restructuring and reclassification exercise' carried out to improve the grade of accommodation on offer. The idea has been to attract more discerning visitors along with the conference market. However, the island is still having problems getting people to see it as a five-star kind of place, and prices for this kind of hotel is therefore often competitive compared to alternatives.

In the meanwhile, although visitors from Italy and Germany for example enjoy some of the more elegant accommodation, away from the big resorts, as yet nobody has opened the kind of boutique option in older buildings which are proving so popular, for example in Morocco. Given the island's attractions, particularly as a short break destination, it may well come.

For the moment there are places like the Inter-Continental, Westin Dragonara, and Corinthia St George, most being around the St Julian's area, on the sea. Others include the Kempinski San Lawrenz on Gozo, totally refurbished, (complete with a spa which combines old marine therapies and Ayurvedic treatments by staff from Kerala). Most five, four and a good number of three-star hotels have children's swimming pools and can cater for families with young children.

Outside the apart-hotel developments, many self-catering options are not officially registered, just advertised by notices or locals in resorts. View before agreeing to take anything.

Note that across the board rates drop by as much as 50% for the winter season of December to March.

For other self-catering options see the report in the Reports Database, Self-Catering - Multi-Destination.