Maldives saw a record number of tourist arrivals during August since the country opened borders for international travel.

As such, the Maldives Immigration department revealed that a total of 7,628 tourists arrived during the past month, which is an increase by the end of the month, from the over 5,000 tourist arrivals recorded within a month since the island nation reopened borders for international travel on July 15.

While the average tourist arrivals during July was 100 per day, this increased to 218 tourist arrivals on an average per day during August.

The highest number of arrivals to have been recorded in a single day was 218 in July, which skyrocketed to 373 during the following month.

Remaining at the top of the highest source markets within the past month was the United Arab Emirates with 1,627 tourist arrivals.

Second comes the United Kingdom with 715 arrivals and the United States of America at its tail with 674 arrivals.

U.S is followed by Spain, where 513 tourists arrived and other top source markets include Russia, 423 visitors, Germany, 306 visitors, France, 301 visitors, Ukraine, 252 visitors, Egypt, 179 visitors and Brazil with 168 visitors.

Maldives responded to the escalating situation of Covid-19 by shutting down borders on March 27 following which the country’s tourism industry was at a complete standstill for over three months.

The government reopened borders on July 15 under the third phase of the lockdown ease plan implemented on May 29.

The global pandemic hit the country’s economic growth hard, even before the first few cases were reported from a resort on March 7.

Since then, Maldives has been implementing numerous measures against the virus, having implemented a full lockdown in the Greater Malé Region on April 15. Nearly four months later, the authorities began easing the lockdown, proven to be an effective method to reduce the daily cases being reported. Once the government entered the third phase of lockdown easing, the country saw a surge in cases once more, and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) was forced to re-introduce a curfew period effective from 10pm to 5am. As part of the efforts to further control the spread of the virus, authorities also implemented a restriction of vehicle movement from 8pm to 5am.