Maldives’ to reopen borders along with resorts, on July 15; guesthouses in August

Maldives is to reopen borders on July 15.

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced this at a press conference held on Tuesday evening.

Noting that the country will be reopening borders and beginning international flights from July 15, the president said that resorts will also be allowed to reopen from the same day. Further, he revealed that work is underway for guesthouses to open in August.

While authorities have stressed the importance of opening up borders without compromising the safety of both the tourists and the people, President Solih highlighted that the fact that Germany considers Maldives as a safe travel destination is comforting.

Germany released a list last week, of 130 countries and regions with dangers of transmitting Covid-19, which listed Maldives as a safe destination.

Furthermore, President Solih stated that they will be working towards “a quick economic recovery” as the country restarts the tourism industry. He added that the National Taskforce on Resilience Building and Economic Recovery- which is working with all relevant institutions, stakeholders and civil society- was formed for this purpose.

The Ministry of Tourism presented its safe tourism guidelines to the taskforce last week, which decided to bring some changes to the guidelines. However, the guideline is yet to be publicized.

While Maldives discovered the first Covid-19 cases from a resort on March 7, the country's borders were closed on March 27. A community transmission was detected later, on April 15, which led to a full lockdown in the greater Malé region. The first phase of lockdown easing began on May 29, and the country entered the second phase on June 15.