Male’, Maldives – A study by the Maldives National University (MNU), in collaboration with Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) estimates that 10,595 will be visiting Maldives in the month of July.
The study, which focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on the tourism industry, showed that a combined total of 10,595 tourists will visit the Maldives even in the worst case scenario.
The study further showed that 11,172 tourists are expected in the month of August but that the numbers would drop in September to 9, 430 before climbing back up to 11,373 in October. It also expected that 11,058 visitors would arrive in Maldives in November and would increase to 13,738 in December of 2020, totaling the number of expected tourists for the year to be 450,134.
The study also revealed that over one million tourists are expected when a basic model is considered.
Some tourism business entities which participated in the survey are reported to have said that a revenue of USD 4.1 million is expected this year, which is a steep decline of 25% from the revenue generated in 2019, however this response amounts to only 2% of the participants of the study.
42 percent of the 246 respondents said that the revenue generated this year will be less than USD 100,000, while 3 percent of respondents said they expected a revenue between US$ 15 million to 20 million. Only 2 percent of respondents expect a revenue between 40 to 50 million.
The Maldives closed its borders to tourists on March 27 as a precautionary measure against COVID-19. The number of tourists who visited the Maldives during the first quarter of the year is 382,760, a decline of 40.8 percent compared to the 646,092 tourists that visited the archipelago during the first quarter of 2019.
As per MNU’s study, tourists will spend 9,6 million nights in the Maldives in a best case scenario. The number of nights are not expected to exceed 2.3 million in a worst case scenario.
Source – Avas
