169 guesthouses spanning Kaafu atoll operational by Wednesday

Of a total of 406 operational guesthouses across the Maldives by Wednesday, 169 guesthouses have resumed operations in Kaafu atoll.

Latest statistics publicized by the Ministry of Tourism revealed that the archipelago nation, a popular holiday destination among zealous travelers, has a capacity of 1,029 tourist accommodation facilities, with 53,219 tourist beds.

Currently, the island nation has 46,493 beds spanning across 705 operational tourist accommodation facilities nationwide.

Out of the 705 facilities being operated, 406 are guesthouses with 7,384 operational beds, 151 resorts with a 34,952-bed capacity, 137 liveaboard vessels with 2,699 beds and 11 hotels currently in operation have a bed capacity of 1,458. This means that over the past week, one more resort and three more guesthouses had resumed operations.

Of the total facility-capacity eight resorts, 294 guesthouses and hotels are yet to resume operations.

By Wednesday, Maldives tourist arrivals for the year had been pushed to a total of 345,261.

Over the past week, two more guesthouses resumed operations in Kaafu atoll and an additional two guesthouses opened doors to tourists in Alif Alif atoll.

As the total tourist arrivals in the island nation topped the 345,000-mark, ministry statistics reveal that India remains the top source market with 78,902 arrivals. Russia follows closely with 73,415 tourist arrivals. Third in the list comes Ukraine with 19,302 tourist arrivals. Some of the other top source tourist markets include Germany, Kazakhstan, Romania, United Kingdom, America, Czech Republic and France.

Maldives reopened borders on 15 July 2020, nearly four months since borders were closed and at first, resorts and liveaboard vessels were given the green light to begin operations. Guesthouses outside of the Greater Malé Region were permitted to resume operations on 15 October 2020. Authorities allowed the reopening of guesthouses in the capital region on 14 December 2020.