Russia continues to top Maldives tourist arrival markets

Russia continues to top the Maldives tourist arrival markets, as the tenth month of the year inches closer to its end.

This was revealed by the Ministry of Tourism in its latest daily statistics, publicized on Sunday.

As such, although India topped the tourist markets for Maldives halfway through the year, it was replaced by Russia recently. 2022 ended with the neighboring country as the top source market for Maldives tourism.

The neighboring country overtook Russia throughout June, which was the frontrunner among the tourism markets with the highest number of tourist arrivals into the first few months of the year.

Russia currently contributes 11.4 percent of the market share with 167,594 arrivals recorded from the country as of October 21, while China has climbed to the second spot replacing India, with 159,938 arrivals, which makes up 10.9 percent of the arrivals.

India has toppled to third contributing 10.9 percent with 159,386 arrivals.

Statistics go on to reveal that since the new year began, a total of 1,464,340 tourists have touched down in the archipelago nation.

Monthly figures show that 172,499 tourists were welcomed during January, 177,915 in February, 173,514 in March, 164,357 in April, 120,959 in May, 120,363 during June, 145,629 in July, 154,854 in August and 130,967 during September. Although the figures dropped in May and June, they were still higher than 100,000 arrivals.

Statistics go on to reveal that between October 1 – 21, Maldives recorded 103,292 tourist arrivals.

This year’s arrival figure is an increase of 13.6 percent from the 1,289,579 arrivals recorded in the same period last year, and a significant growth from the 962,640 arrivals recorded in 2021.

The daily average for 2023 is at 4,981 and tourists are staying in the Maldives for an average of seven days.

The ministry’s statistics indicate that the arrival figure for the ongoing month is a 4.4 percent surge compared to the 98,950 arrivals recorded in the same period last year and the 91,778 tourists welcomed during the same period in 2021.

The daily average for October is 4,919 and tourists are staying for an average of seven days.

Maldives hit its one millionth tourist arrival of the ongoing year on July 16.

Maldives is expected to record 1.9 million tourist arrivals by year-end.

The government launched its fifth tourism master plan which places high priority in achieving the target noted including increasing bed nights. The tourism master plan carries the purpose of developing the tourism sector and increasing services provided to tourists by the country.

The government also plans to expand tourism across the scatter of islands comprising the Maldives.

In his presidential address this year, President Solih stated that the Maldives will be welcoming 3.5 million tourists annually, by 2028.

Tourism was introduced in the Maldives in 1972. It has been 50 years since zealous travelers have been visiting the Maldives which has been drawing in visitors with its picturesque beauty for years.