Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has said tourist arrival has grown impressively soaring to its highest in four years.
The tourism sector grew with the continuous promotional activities carried out in different parts of the globe proved successful in attracting a better than-expected number of tourists into the country; tailwinds from favourable economic environments in the main source markets boosted the sector's performance during the year, according to the annual financial report of MMA.
The sector also benefited from the lower global airfares over recent years resulting from lower global oil prices, as well as the increased flight movement by international carriers, revealed MMA.
Against this backdrop, annual tourist arrivals grew markedly by 8% after three years of unremarkable growth and summed to 1.4 million in 2017. Tourism receipts totalled USD 2.7 billion during the year, which is a growth of 9% in annual terms, according to MMA.
With the opening of nine new resorts, the total number of resorts increased to 135 at the end of the year as per statistics.