“Malta is where Old People go on holidays”. Discuss.

This may seem a surprising idea for some, but in Britain and Ireland Malta has long had a reputation as a holiday destination for the older traveller.  Much of this was fueled by the fact that for a long time British pensioners saw (and still do see) Malta as the ideal place to retire after their working days had done.  The British pound did quite nicely thank you against the old Maltese lira, and so the older folk were happily snapping up properties to enjoy their autumn years in the summer sun.  Having endured teenage and onward years in the British winters, this seemed like a pretty good deal.

However since Malta joined the EU and adopted the euro, the British old age pension doesn’t stretch quite as far.  Also, property prices here are pretty steep which doesn’t help to stretch your income.  Malta has really targeted the English language tourists in the last few years, and these tend to be be largely made up of younger folks from across Europe and Asia.  As the success of Paceville demonstrates – assuming that you equate success with money changing hands rather than any type of aesthetic beauty – Malta is getting more and more popular with those in their teens and twenties as something of a party location.  Throw in the hundreds of internet companies on the island populated by large numbers of twenty-something Northern Europeans, and I think it’s fair to say that the age demographic has definitely changed in the last twenty years or so.