527 guesthouses currently operational, with 15 more opening doors last week

With 15 more guesthouses opening doors to tourists over the past week, Maldives currently has an operational guesthouse capacity of 527.

Publicizing its daily statistics, the Ministry of Tourism revealed that a total of 836 tourist accommodation establishments are currently operating 50,310 beds across the Maldives. Of these, 156 are resorts, 527 are guesthouses, 143 are liveaboard vessels and 10 are hotels.

This means that 15 guesthouses and one liveaboard vessel had resumed services in the one-week period, between August 22 – 29. Currently, guesthouses are operating across 78 islands of 20 atolls.

Of the over 50,300 operational beds, a majority; 36,932 are in resorts, 9,188 in guesthouses, 2,828 in safari vessels and 1,362 in hotels.

Maldives has a capacity of 1,053 tourist facilities which include 160 safari vessels, 730 hotels and guesthouses and 163 resorts. This means that of the total facility-capacity, 17 safari vessels, seven resorts, 192 guesthouses and hotels are yet to resume operations.

By Sunday, a total of 749,186 tourist arrivals have been recorded, with 136,819 having been welcomed during August. This is a 2.4 percent increase from the 133,595 arrivals recorded in the same period of 2019. Due to border closure on 27 March 2020, arrivals recorded during this period was significantly low, at 7,263.

Looking at August’s arrivals, the highest daily increase in arrival figures has been recorded on August 7, when 6,083 tourists were welcomed at Velana International Airport. The lowest daily arrivals was 3,090 on August 27. On Sunday 4,417 tourists arrived in the Maldives.

Recently, authorities revealed that tourists who have not completed the Covid-19 vaccination will be barred from checking into guesthouses established in residential islands. As such, only those who have passed the limit of 14 days after completing both doses of the vaccine can check in to local guesthouses.

Maldives reopened borders on 15 July 2020, nearly four months since borders were closed and at first, resorts and liveaboard vessels were given the green light to begin operations. Guesthouses outside of the Greater Malé Region were permitted to resume operations on 15 October 2020. Authorities allowed the reopening of guesthouses in the capital region on 14 December 2020.