A total of 111,654 tourists have been welcomed so far in December.

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

The tourism ministry revealed that between December 1 – 19, a total of 111,654 tourists touched down in the Maldives. A total of 1,795,501 tourist arrivals were recorded overall within this period.

So far in December, the arrival figure is a 6.2 percent surge compared to the 105,153 arrivals recorded in the same period last year and the 98,775 tourists welcomed during the same period in 2021.

The arrival figure for 2023 is an increase of 12.5 percent from the 1,596,405 arrivals recorded in the same period last year, and a significant growth from the 1,256,428 arrivals recorded in 2021.

The total arrival figure so far this year, includes 172,499 tourists 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, 130,967 during September, 159,141 during October and 163,658 during November. Although the figures dropped in May and June, they were still higher than 100,000 arrivals.

The daily average for 2023 is 5,376 and tourists stay for an average of seven days.

Maldives hit its one millionth tourist arrival of the ongoing year on July 16 and welcomed its 1.8 millionth tourist of the concluding year on Wednesday. A Stefan Mathijs, the 1.8 millionth tourist of the year hails from Netherlands and arrived in the Maldives for holidays with his partner and two kids.

This was the initial tourist arrival target set by the previous government, for the concluding year.

The highest number of daily arrivals so far this month, was recorded December 17.