Are We Back in the Game? Maldives Sees Tourist Arrivals Increase by 56 Percent in Barely a Month!

Maldives put a temporary stop on its economy’s foundational pillar, the tourism industry which accounts for the major income earned by the country due to the outbreak of the global pandemic COVID-19 earlier in the year. It was deemed to be the safest course of action in sustaining the spread of virus throughout the country. With a significantly exhausted economy, Maldives resumed tourist activities on 15^th July 2020, after about 3 months into a travel ban. Since then, all stakeholders have been collaboratively working towards reinstating the industry to its state prior to this. Countless of Maldivians eagerly monitor the tourist traffic of Maldives regularly with hope to see increase in tourist arrivals.

During the first two months, the number of tourist arrivals did not reach up to expectations, demotivating many tirelessly working to increase the numbers. At the end of September, statistics showed that only 18,867 tourists had arrived to the country. However, faith in the success of the tourism industry has been restored by the increase in tourist arrivals by 56% in barely a month’s time. In this regard, effective of 15^th October, Maldives Immigration has recorded the arrival of 27,217 tourists since the border re-opening.

Detailed statistics accounting for the period from 1^st October to 15^th October shows arrivals of 8,350 tourists in total. Out of this, the highest number of tourists were recorded from Russia; amounting to 2308 people. Coming in second, 656 tourists have arrived from the United States of America whereas the United Kingdom takes the third place by a total of 525 tourists.

The rapid increase in tourist arrivals is a calculated results of the resumption of flight operations to additional destinations and also the increase of flight frequency as well as the marketing campaign that have been launched by MMPRC to increase the destination presence of Maldives in the tourist markets of numerous countries.