Male’, Maldives – Minister of Tourism of Maldives, Abdulla Mausoom has said that the ministry expects Maldives to welcome at least 100,000 tourists by December 16.
While celebrating Maldives breaking the 2019 November record of tourist arrivals on this November, Minister Mausoom said that the country’s tourism is “bouncing back” with excitement.
With further high expectations, Minister Mausoom states that the country expects to welcome at least 100,000 tourists before December 16 and to have an annual arrival target of 500,000 by December 25.
On November, Maldives had welcomed over 32,000 tourists during the month of November alone, inching towards the 80,000 goal that was targeted by the Tourism Ministry. By the end of November, statistics showed that the tourist arrival since the border opening stood at 72,623 arrivals, reaching closer to the target.
According to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Tourism, a total of 32,241 tourists arrived to the country during November, with Russia being the top market for arrivals accounting for 16,285 tourists. This is 22.4 percent of the total arrivals since border opening.
Following behind Russia was India with 8,690 tourists while 5,312 Brits also arrived to the country. America, UAE, Germany and Ukraine also were noted as top markets for the country.
Maldives closed its international borders on March to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus. However, as the country solely depends on its tourism sector, it reopened their borders as soon as the number of confirmed cases started to decrease in the country.
Since the border reopening, over 20 airlines have resumed their operations to Maldives. Some of these airlines include of the British Airways, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Air India and Turkish Airlines.
After the borders opened, the Tourism Ministry has been proactively doing various activities and taking measures to promote tourism in the country including promotional events and high safety standards in the tourism sector to prevent spreading of Covid-19 virus in the resorts and other tourist facilities.
Luckily, Maldives also got certified as a “Safe Travel” destination, which is safe for tourists to travel to, on September. This stamp is only provided to the countries that are the safest to visit to despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. With the help of the stamp, the island nation continues to gain more tourist to the country, slowly making progress in its economy.
While the island nation does not require tourist to go through quarantine or testing on arrival, all the tourists are required to complete an online health declaration form given by the country and to also provide a negative PCR test result along with it. The PCR test must be taken at least 96 hours prior to departure.
