The Malta Tourism Authority is proud to be supporting Götheborg of Sweden’s first-ever voyage to Malta as part of the ship’s Asian Expedition 2022/2023

Earlier this morning, the world’s largest ocean-going wooden sailing ship, and a replica of an 18th century Swedish East India Company ship, Götheborg of Sweden, arrived in Valletta; its 12th stopover on its way to Asia. 

The ship will be in Valletta from 14–18 October and will be open to visitors at the Valletta Waterfront. 

The ship is on a two-year-long expedition, the Asia Expedition 2022/2023. Following in the historic footsteps of the original ship from the 18th century, the purpose of the expedition is for people to be able to sail along and experience sailing an 18^th-century ship, for people to visit the ship in ports, and to promote trade relations in Europe and Asia. On each sailing, about 50 members of the public can sail along as deckhands. The professional crew consists of about 20 professional sailors, which means that there are between 70–80 people on board for each sailing leg.

The ship will sail in Europe in 2022, stay in Barcelona during the winter, and continue to Asia in March 2023. In September 2023, the ship will reach the expedition’s end destination Shanghai. The Götheborg left Gothenburg on 8 June 2022 and has since visited Helsingborg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, London, Bremerhaven, Lisbon, Málaga, Nice and Monaco. The next stop after Valletta is Barcelona, the last stop on this year’s expedition. 

“This is the first time that the ship Götheborg visits Malta and Valletta, and we are already overwhelmed by the warm welcome from the city of Valletta. We are looking forward to beautiful days”, said Kristoffer Bennis, Expedition Director at Götheborg of Sweden.

“As an Authority we are extremely proud to give our support to the first-ever visit of the Götheborg of Sweden in Malta and we are also very pleased that Malta and the Grand Harbour were chosen as one of the port of calls in the Mediterranean for this Asia expedition. Having the Götheborg grace the Grand Harbour over the next few days will definitely bring added value to those tourists who will be in Malta on their holidays, while also serve as a new and unique attraction for the locals,” Carlo Micallef, CEO of MTA added.

“The Malta Tourism Authority has been a proactive driving force in the diversification of the local touristic product. This process includes various niches aimed at targeting high quality maritime attractions to the Maltese Islands. Malta’s biggest footprint is its aquatic surroundings and we will sustain this by introducing an activity dimension aimed at creating a more direct and appreciative fashion with the marine environment,” remarked Minister for Tourism Clayton Bartolo.