Maldives records a daily average of 2,561 visitors in December

Maldives is seeing a daily average of over 2,500 visitors during the ongoing month.

While the country reopened borders after a nearly four-month closure in July, with the hopes of overcoming the economic challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic quickly. However, arrivals were slower than anticipated with 1,701 arrivals recorded within the first 15 days of border reopening and a daily average of 100 visitors.

August saw 7,628 arrivals with a daily average of 246 arrivals while 9,538 tourists visited the island nation in September. While September saw a daily average of 318 visitors, there was a total of 21,515 arrivals as well as a daily average of 694 in October. Further, a total of 35,759 visitors visited the island nation last month, with a daily average of 1,192.

According to the ministry’s statistics, arrivals within the first 18 days of December has already exceeded the previous month; 46,104 tourist arrivals were recorded between 1-18 December with a daily average of 2,561 visitors.

3,418 visitors arrived in the archipelago nation on December 18, while the highest arrivals was recorded on December 13, since border reopening; 4,191 arrivals.

Over 505,000 tourists have visited the Maldives throughout the whole year, including a total of 122,245 arrivals between 15 July to 18 December.

While Italy had been the top source market for tourism throughout the year, Russia took over the top spot with the start of December with over 46,000 arrivals recorded by December 18. Statistics show that there have not been much arrivals from the former, since borders were reopened.

Russia is also the leading source market since border reopening, with 23,226 arrivals recorded by December 18. This contributes to 19 percent of the total arrivals since borders were reopened.

India remains in second with 18,758 arrivals (15.3 percent) since border reopening while the third-leading source market is still the United Kingdom with 12,372 arrivals (10.1 percent).

Other top performing tourist markets since border reopening (July 15 - December 18):

Maldives welcomed a record breaking 1.7 million tourist arrivals in 2019, and a two million target was made for 2020. This all changed following the Covid-19 pandemic, which has taken a toll on the country’s tourism industry and in turn economy.

While the target for 2020 was reduced to 500,000 visitors, the country reached this target on Thursday. Further, it marked the 100,000th visitor milestone on December 12.