Operational capacity of tourist facilities drops to 1,213
Five liveaboard vessels halted operations in 2022
A guesthouse in Maafushi island
The operational capacity of tourist accommodation establishments has dropped to 1,213.
This was revealed by the latest weekly statistics publicized by the Ministry of Tourism on Friday.
As such, the ministry revealed that the number of operational tourist accommodation establishments across the Maldives has dropped to 1,213.
Speaking to RaajjeMV, an official from the ministry revealed that the reason for the drop in operational tourist accommodation establishments is due to the halting of services in some liveaboard vessels last year.
Presently, a total of 1,213 tourist accommodation facilities are operational across Maldives, with a total of 59,896 tourist beds.
Operational facilities include 168 resorts, 880 guesthouses, 13 hotels and 152 live-aboard vessels. The guesthouses span across 117 islands of 20 atolls, with hotels operational in seven islands of seven atolls.
As of February 8, 69 percent of the bed capacity is occupied by resorts, followed by 23 percent occupied by guesthouses, five percent by safari vessels and three percent by hotels.
The total number of operational beds span across resorts, hotels, guesthouses, and live-aboard vessels including 41,049 in resorts, 1,640 in hotels, 14,254 in guesthouses and 2,953 in live-aboard vessels.
Maldives currently has a capacity of 1,217 tourist facilities which include 152 safari vessels, 880 guesthouses, 13 hotels and 172 resorts. This means that of the total facility capacity, four resorts are yet to resume operations.
The ministry introduced Homestay in the Maldives in January 2022, since then a few more homestay facilities have been opened. This comes under President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s tourism development vision and policy to make tourism and its benefits accessible to the island communities as well.
After the Covid 19 pandemic Maldives re-opened borders on 15 July 2020 nearly four months since borders were closed, and at first, resorts and live-aboard 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.
