Ministry of Tourism has recorded the highest daily tourist arrivals since re-opening the borders on October 16.
Statistics from the tourism ministry show 6,197 tourists visited the Maldives on October 16, breaking the previous record of 6,083 tourist arrivals on August 7.
The government closed borders as part of the safety measures following the COVID-19 outbreak and re-opened the borders in July last year. Since then, the government and tourism companies have worked to market the Maldives as a safe haven with strict COVID-19 measures in order to increase the number of tourist arrivals.
Currently, the tourism ministry is recording a daily average of 4,022 tourist arrivals, which is a significant increase from the less than 100 tourist arrivals recorded after the re-opening of borders. The government has set a target of one million tourist arrivals to the Maldives by the end of the year and the tourism ministry recently confirmed 90% of the target has been achieved.
Statistics from the ministry show 923,146 tourist arrivals were recorded as of October 13 and the country now requires 76,854 more arrivals to achieve its target of one million arrivals. The tourism ministry stated the target of one million tourist arrivals will be achieved within the next 20 days and 1.2 million tourist arrivals will be recorded for the year if the daily average figures remain the same for the remaining part of the year.
The statistics also show India is currently the top source market of tourists to the Maldives, accounting for 23% of all arrivals this year, while Russia is second in the market with 19.4% of all arrivals this year. The ministry revealed tourists spend an average of eight days in the Maldives.
The Maldives was one of the first countries to reopen its borders to tourists, and currently, 93% of resort employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.