Male, Maldives (CU)_ The Maldives had received more than 235,000 visitors by Monday. According to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Tourism, the island’s total tourist entry until March 14 was 235,758. It is a 37.3 percent decrease compared to the corresponding period last year, where the total number of tourists was 376,164. According to the Ministry’s statistics, the island recorded around 3,230 tourists per day, with an average stay of nine days.
According to March data, so far Maldives has received 46,773 tourists, with March 7 recording the highest daily arrivals of 4,325 tourists and March 3 recording the lowest arrivals of 2,368 tourists. The number of tourists arrived in Maldives on Sunday was 4,101. India has been the top source market for tourism in the Maldives from the beginning of 2021, accounting for 23.6 percent of total arrivals.
The second top source market for tourism in the Maldives is Russia, which accounts for 21.8 percent of overall arrivals. Third comes Ukraine, which accounts for 6.6 percent. Apart from this, the other important tourist markets for Maldives are Kazakhstan, Germany, Romania, the Czech Republic, France, Switzerland, and the United States of America. In addition, the Maldives currently has 671 tourist accommodation establishments with 45,225 beds in place.
There are 376 guesthouses in service with 6, 864 beds; 148 resorts operating with 34,226 beds; 136 liveaboard vessels in service with 2,677 beds; and 11 hotels operating with 1,458 beds. The 678 guesthouses, 159 resorts, 157 liveaboard boats, and 13 hotels together constitute a total of 1,007 tourist facilities in the Maldives. In 2019, the island witnessed a record-breaking 1.7 million visitors, and the upbeat government, in an attempt to break the record, targeted two million tourists in 2020.
However, the plan was thwarted by the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, which forced to stop issuing on-arrival visas from March 27 of that year. After four months, tourism in Maldives slowly started to resurge from July 15 onwards, with arrivals gradually rising over the following months. By the end of December 2020, the Maldives had surpassed its new target of 545,000 tourist arrivals, and is on track to welcome 1.5 million visitors this year.
