Factors leading to the increasing trend in wedding tourism in Malta

Abstract

Wedding tourism refers to the international trips that are taken by tourists to either get married in a particular destination, to celebrate someone else’s marriage, or to simply re-live memories of their wedding which would have taken place in the past. Over the years, this trend has increased, especially throughout the last decade (BRS, 2011). Consequentially, airlines, hotel chains, resorts, wedding coordinator companies and other stakeholders are all generating income profit from these destination weddings, and therefore, it is safe to say that the wedding tourism industry is benefiting the economy overall. The main task for this study was to identify those features, which are the most attractive to the couples, and thus, influencing the increasing trend of wedding tourism in Malta. In order to arrive to that conclusion the researcher made use of a mixed approach, that is, both quantitative and qualitative, since both questionnaires and interviews had to be used for different reasons. Foreign couples, wedding suppliers and the chief officer of marketing at The Malta Tourism Authority were all participants in this research. This was done in order to generate enough knowledge from all sides of the industry. This study concludes with recommendations for any future work based on wedding tourism.