GO plc, has released the Q2 2026 edition of GO Trends, its data intelligence report on how international visitors move around the Maltese islands. Building on the full-year 2025 report published earlier this year, the new edition covers April to June 2026 and follows visitors from seven key source markets, namely Australia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, the UK and the USA, across 16 monitored sites and attractions and ten localities.
The result is a quarter in rotation: as summer built, visitors moved away from heritage and towards the coast.
“Q2 showed us just how quickly the picture can change within a single quarter. The UK nearly doubled its footprint between April and June, Valletta almost doubled its share of where visitors start and end their day, and beach and nightlife pulled clearly ahead of heritage,” explained Alison Schembri, Market & Data Insights Manager, GO plc.
A Surging UK Market and a Clear Shift In Where Visitors Spend Their Time
“Businesses that rely on market insight need to see that movement as it happens, and that’s why we want to sit down with them and work through what it means for their operations,” she added.
According to the latest GO Trends report, British visitors accounted for 45% of attraction footfall and grew 93% between April and June, the fastest rise of any major market. That growth went hand in hand with a seasonal swing, as beach footfall rose 55% and nightlife footfall 78% across the quarter, while heritage footfall eased back by 8%.
Where visitors base themselves is shifting too. Valletta’s share of combined morning and dining presence nearly doubled, from 10% in Q1 to 19% in Q2, while Qawra and San Pawl il-Baħar both gave up ground. Even so, that northern corridor remains firmly Polish, with Polish visitors making up 35–41% of morning and dining presence there, the highest single-nationality concentration of any locality.
Some venues are more concentrated still: at Numero Uno and Ġianpula in Ta’ Qali, UK visitors account for 83–85% of footfall. American visitors, meanwhile, make up around 24% of morning presence in Valletta against a 5% baseline, even as overall USA attraction footfall fell 25% over the quarter.
Compared to Q1, the report also confirms which patterns are holding firm, such as the Three Cities remaining an evening destination rather than a base.
As with previous editions, the report draws on anonymised and aggregated signals generated when international visitors’ phones connect to GO’s network. A visitor’s home operator reveals nationality, while the network site they connect to shows where they are, down to specific localities and points of interest, and at what time of day.
The Q2 edition focuses on seven nationalities and a defined set of monitored sites and localities, offering a meaningful sample rather than a census of Maltese tourism. All data is fully anonymised. GO Trends tracks movement patterns, never the individuals.
Alongside the report, GO is inviting businesses to an exclusive GO Trends briefing on Tuesday 3rd November, with further details to be disclosed soon. Business representatives are invited to register their interest in participating in this event here https://www.go.com.mt/form/go-trends-event/contact-details
Meantime, work on the Q3 2026 analysis is already under way. Visit https://www.go.com.mt/go-trends/ for more information and access to published reports.
