Over 13,000 tourists arrive within first two months of border reopening

Over 13,000 tourist arrivals have been recorded within the first two months since Maldives reopened borders for international travel.

The Maldives Immigration department revealed that they recorded a total of 13,516 between July 15 – September 15.

Tourist arrivals had increased by 61 percent during the second months, immigration revealed.

Statistics publicized by the department reveal that a total of 4,458 tourists arrived between the period dated September 1 – 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. Within the first 15 days of September, the number ranged from 200 – 400, the lowest arrivals were recorded on September 2; 122.

The highest number of arrivals to have been recorded in a single day was 486 on September 13, a majority of visitors, 221 having arrived from Russia. On September 1, 430 tourist arrivals were recorded and September 11 saw 428 recorded arrivals.

Remaining at the top of the highest source markets since border reopening is the United Arab Emirates with 656 tourist arrivals between September 1 – 15.

Second comes Russia with 539 arrivals and the United States of America at its tail with 502 arrivals.

U.S. is followed by the United Kingdom which saw 341 visitors, Brazil with 262 arrivals, Spain with 254 arrivals and 178 visitors from Germany.

Other top source markets include Egypt, 132 visitors, France, 121 visitors, India, 116 visitors Ukraine and 107 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, daily cases being reported began soaring 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.