Statistics of Ministry of Tourism shows that India is the top source market of Maldivian tourism, thus far this year.
According to the statistics of Tourism Ministry, a total of 32,970 tourist from India visited the Maldives until 17 February. This is 22.3 percent of the tourist arrivals reported to the Maldives in 2021. India was also the top source market of Maldivian tourism by the end of year 2020, with a total of 62,960 tourist arrivals recorded.
While the Russian market contributes 21.7 percent of all tourist arrivals reported, a total of 32,019 tourists have visited the Maldives from Russia. While Ukraine is the third largest market of Maldivian tourism, thus far this year, a total of 10,178 tourists from Ukraine have visited the Maldives.
Other top source markets include Kazakhstan (6,788 arrivals), Romania (6,154 arrivals), Germany (5,689 arrivals), France (4,740 arrivals), Switzerland (3,862 arrivals), United Kingdom (3,853 arrivals) and Czech Republic (3,668 arrivals).
Even though the number of tourist arrivals, have been decreased due to covid-19, a total of 147,744 tourists have visited the Maldives thus far this year. While an average of 3,078 tourists arrive in the Maldives daily, they spend an average of nine days in the Maldives.
By the end of the first month of year 2021, Maldives recorded tourist arrivals of over 90,000.
By the 17th of February, a total of 145 resorts and 351 guesthouses were in operation in the Maldives, as well as 11 hotels and 136 safari vessels, bringing total number of operational beds to 43,990.
The Maldivian government, have been promoting the country's tourism as safe tourism and to secure the safety of both the tourists and the employees of tourism sector, the ministry launched an initiative to vaccinate tourism sector employees. The first batch will see 10,000 tourism sector frontline employees receive the vaccine.
Due to the standstill on the tourism sector, the country recorded 555,494 tourist arrivals in 2020, a drastic decline from 2019's 1.7 million visitors. The country aims to welcome 1.5 million visitors this year.