Sunny Side of Life Booming with Hope to Hit 500k Tourist Arrivals In 2020

Although the island destination hit rock bottom due to the global pandemic, COVID-19, in recent times, since the reopening of the border, the Maldives has received much hopes as tourist arrivals begin to flourish again.

In order to give more convenience for guests into visiting multiple tourist accommodation facilities during their stay in Maldives, Ministry in consultation with Health Protection Agency (HPA) has introduced the facilitation of “Split Stays”.

With this, guests receive permission to switch between resorts that meets all compulsory requirements under the “Split Stay” guideline approved by HPA. From 15^th July to 28^th October, a total of 37,468 tourists arrived in the Maldives.

From the different countries that arrived in the Maldives, Russia chartered the top of the list, becoming the top source market of the Maldives, with over 7507 arrivals. Following this, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) takes the second place with over 3479 tourist arrivals and the United States stands third with over 3056 tourist arrivals.

The runner-up countries include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Spain, Ukraine and Brazil. The month of October has been marked with a daily average of 620 tourist arrivals, and from the whole year, the daily average is recorded to be 1466 tourist arrivals.

A number of major airlines resumed flights to Maldives, offering connectivity to our main source markets to reach us more conveniently. The current flights in operation to the Maldives are British Airways, Edelweiss, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Fly Dubai, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Indigo, Air India, Sri Lankan Airlines and Aeroflot. Upcoming flights for November are Gulf Air, GoAir, Spicejet, Nordwind and Azur Air Russia.

The progress attained by the Maldivian industry can only be accredited to the effective implementation of several safety and precautionary measures to ensure the safe yet enjoyable experiences in the Maldives.

With all necessary measures in place and more opportunities opening up, Maldives is hopeful to achieve the target 500k by the end of the year; 80k tourists more to go!