More than 115,000 tourists have arrived in the Maldives from China.
This was revealed by the Ministry of Tourism through its latest daily tourist arrival statistics publicized on Wednesday.
As such, China sits at the top of the list of tourist source markets, contributing 11.7 percent of the market share with 115,815 arrivals by June 25.
The new year began with Italy topping the tourist arrival markets of the island nation, however it was replaced by Russia for a few weeks.
Although the United Kingdom ranked second place for a while, it was replaced by Russia once more.
Russia now contributes 10.3 percent of the market share with 102,317 arrivals recorded so far.
Russia dominated the tourist arrival markets of the Maldives by the end of 2023.
UK currently ranks third place in the top 10 markets, contributing 9.2 percent of the market share with 91,71 arrivals.
Although India was among the top three source markets into the beginning of the year, it was replaced by China.
Other top tourist markets so far in 2024 are:
- Italy contributing eight percent with 79,287 arrivals
- Germany contributing 7.8 percent with 77,155 arrivals
- India contributing 6.2 percent with 61,770 arrivals
- United States contributing 3.6 percent with 35,541 arrivals
- France contributing 3.4 percent with 33,443 arrivals
- Switzerland contributing 2.2 percent with 22,168 arrivals
- Poland contributing 1.8 percent with 18,206 arrivals
Further, statistics go on to reveal that Maldives has welcomed a total of 993,328 visitors since 2024 began.
Maldives welcomed 1.8 million tourists in 2023 and aspires to welcome two million tourists this year.
During January the country welcomed 192,385 visitors, followed by 217,392 in February, 194,227 during March, 168,366 during April and 119,875 in May.
Between June 1 – 25, 101,083 tourists were welcomed at Velana International Airport (VIA).
Arrivals so far this year, are a 9.8 percent increase from the 904,983 arrivals recorded in the same period last year, and a significant growth from the 794,853 arrivals recorded in 2022.
The daily average for 2024 so far, is 5,612 and tourists are staying for an average of eight days.
The arrivals for the sixth month of the year, are a 5.6 percent surge in comparison to the 95,739 arrivals recorded in the same period last year as well as the 92,519 arrivals recorded in the same period of 2022.
About 4,043 tourists are arriving on average every day during this month, and tourists are staying in the Maldives for seven days.
Looking at the daily arrivals for June
- 3,519 tourists were welcomed on June 1
- 3,793 tourists were welcomed on June 2
- 4,218 tourists were welcomed on June 3
- 3,291 tourists were welcomed on June 4
- 4,276 tourists were welcomed on June 5
- 3,126 tourists were welcomed on June 6
- 3,519 tourists were welcomed on June 7
- 3,540 tourists were welcomed on June 8
- 3,714 tourists were welcomed on June 9
- 4,138 tourists were welcomed on June 10
- 3,019 tourists were welcomed on June 11
- 3,860 tourists were welcomed on June 12
- 3,764 tourists were welcomed on June 13
- 5,646 tourists were welcomed on June 14
- 5,516 tourists were welcomed on June 15
- 5,178 tourists were welcomed on June 16
- 5,200 tourists were welcomed on June 17
- 4,131 tourists were welcomed on June 18
- 4,737 tourists were welcomed on June 19
- 3,481 tourists were welcomed on June 20
- 3,678 tourists were welcomed on June 21
- 3,481 tourists were welcomed on June 22
- 4,212 tourists were welcomed on June 23
- 4,512 tourists were welcomed on June 24
- 3,466 tourists were welcomed on June 25
The highest number of tourist arrivals recorded on a daily basis so far this year, was on February 10, when more than 10,000 tourist arrivals were recorded.
The first tourist visitor of the new year was welcomed during a special ceremony held at VIA in the early hours of January 1.
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 52 years since zealous travelers have been visiting the Maldives which has been drawing in visitors with its picturesque beauty for years.
