Maldives welcomed over 140,000 tourists by Wednesday

Maldives welcomed more than 140,000 tourists by Wednesday.

This was revealed by the Ministry of Tourism through its latest daily tourist arrival statistics publicized on Wednesday.

As such, statistics show that between January 1 – 23, a total of 140,646 tourist arrivals have been recorded.

Since the new year began, the arrival figure has seen an increase of 10.5 percent from the 127,292 arrivals recorded in the same period last year, and a significant growth from the 99,356 arrivals recorded in 2022.

The daily average for 2024 so far, is 6,115 and tourists are staying for an average of eight days.

The highest number of tourist arrivals recorded on a daily basis so far this year, was on January 13, when more than 7,700 tourist arrivals were recorded.

The new year began with Italy topping the tourist arrival markets of the island nation. However, it was recently replaced by Russia, contributing 11 percent of the market share with 15,419 arrivals.

Russia continued to dominate the tourist arrival markets of the Maldives by the end of 2023 as well.

Italy has toppled to second spot and now contributes 10.7 percent of the market share with 15,077 arrivals recorded so far.

Although India was among the top three source markets, it was replaced by the United Kingdom within the last few days. UK contributes 8.4 percent of the market share, with 11,858 arrivals.

Although Romania was among the top source markets, it has been replaced by Poland.

The first tourist visitor of the new year was welcomed during a special ceremony held at Velana International Airport (VIA) in the early hours of January 1. A Benjamin Duncan Moore, the first tourist of 2024 hails from the United Kingdom and arrived in the island nation on an Emirates flight.

Welcoming the first tourist of 2024 to the Maldives, Minister of Tourism Ibrahim Faisal noted that this is a fantastic start to what promises to be another successful year for the Maldives’ tourism industry.

He expressed keen interest in diversifying and exploring additional markets to reach this year’s arrival target.

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.