The Maldives has recorded over 100,000 tourist arrivals to the Indian Ocean destination in the first 35 days of the year. Until February 4, 2021, there was a total of 1,02,107 tourist arrivals.
Maldives was among the first countries to reopen its borders and even during such unprecedented times, the tourism industry remained vigilant and worked towards increasing tourist arrival numbers. As a result, 2020 ended with the celebration of over 500,000 tourist arrivals for the year, and over 100,000 tourist arrivals since the reopening of borders.
According to the data of Ministry of Tourism, 10,004 arrivals were from February 1 to 4, with a daily average of 2,501 arrivals. On 10th February 2021, a total of 121,694 tourist arrivals were recorded. Presently, the top source market for tourist arrivals is Russia, followed by India and United Kingdom. Other top markets include Ukraine, Germany, United States, France, Kazakhstan, Romania and United Arab Emirates.
At present the top source markets for tourist arrivals is Russia followed by India and Ukraine. Other key markets for the island nation include Kazakhstan, Romania, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, and the United States.
The island nation reopened its doors to tourists on July 15, 2020, with stringent safety measures in place. Although there is no mandatory quarantine for arrival, all tourists are required to fill an online health declaration form within 24 hours prior to departure and submit a negative Covid-19 PCR test result, conducted a maximum of 96 hours prior to departure to the Maldives.
Despite the Covid-induced challenges, Maldives witnessed over 500,000 tourist arrivals for 2020.
At present, there are over 140 resorts and over 330 guesthouses in operation, along with over 135 liveaboards and 11 hotels. There are 27 airlines operating flights between the Maldives and other global destinations.
On February 1, 2021, Maldives started the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine. Maldives’ tourism ministry also launched an initiative to vaccinate people in the tourism sector.
The Ministry added that around 10,000 tourism industry workers will be inoculated during this programme including resort staff, guesthouse staff, liveaboard workers, airport representatives, and local artists.
On February 14, the local Health Protection Agency, (HPA) reported that the government of Maldives has vaccinated over 38,591 people against the pandemic.
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