Since border reopening, Maldives recorded the highest single-day tourist arrival rate, with over 5,555 arrivals on Sunday.

Tourism Minister Dr. Abdulla Mausoom announced on Sunday that “a new record and nice number surpassed again” via Twitter, adding that the country welcomed over 5,555 tourist arrivals.

He further expressed gratitude to all travel and tourism partners, related authorities and the local community for working towards tourism recovery.

While the country saw a record breaking 4,796 tourist arrivals since border reopening on Saturday as well, this record was broken by Sunday’s 5,674 arrivals.

With this, a total of 56,662 tourists have visited the island nation between 1-20 December, with a daily average of 2,833 visitors.

As per the markets, looking at the total arrivals after border reopening, Russia remains the top with 25,677 tourists. This is followed by India with 22,015 tourists. The United Kingdom is in third position with 15,379 with the USA at number four with 7,356 arrivals. Germany has jumped to the fifth spot with 6,255 arrivals. Other top source markets after the border reopening includes the United Arab Emirates, France, Ukraine, Spain and Brazil.

As the country continues efforts to overcome the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic especially given that its most beneficial industry, the tourism industry, was a standstill for nearly four months. While international travel resumed on July 15, Maldives recently welcomed the 100,000th tourist since border reopening, as well as the 500,000th tourist for the year.

While arrivals were lower than expected initially after border reopening, things have picked up as the country entered what industry experts call "peak season”.

Prior to the pandemic, Maldives saw an average of between 4,000 to 6,000 tourists per day.