Maldives to review temporary suspension of tourist visas for South Asian tourists

Journalists from India who came to promote Maldivian tourism | Photo: VisitMaldives

Malé, Maldives – The Tourism Ministry has announced their plans to ease the temporary travel restrictions placed for South Asian tourists travelling to Maldives.

Maldives temporarily stopped issuing tourist visas to South Asian tourists on 13th May due to the deteriorating Covid-19 situation in the region. This includes countries such as India and even Maldives itself with record number of daily positive cases.

The Tourism Ministry tweeted saying that Maldives will review the temporary suspension tourist visas for those travelling from South Asian countries. The Ministry noted that they are optimistic of easing the temporary restrictions by early June.

In the latest statistics released by HPA, it was detailed that out of the 741 cases yesterday, 560 were from the Malé area, while 156 cases were recorded from inhabited islands. The figures also included 25 case from operational resorts which brought up the total active cases in the country to 15,958. With this, the total number of Covid-19 cases recorded in the country has reached 44,523 out of which 28,459 patients have made full recoveries, as of 18:00 of May 15, 2021.

While the country is currently going through one of the worst waves that has hit the country in terms of the pandemic, currently there are 262 patients receiving hospitalized care for the virus throughout the country.

With majority of the hospitalized patients being in the capital, experts continuously reiterate the importance of taking preventive steps against Covid-19, such as maintaining adequate physical distancing, wearing masks and practicing hand hygiene.