Malé, Maldives – The latest statistics from the Tourism Ministry show that Maldives has recorded over 469,000 tourist arrivals so far in 2021.
The Ministry of Tourism revealed that Maldives recorded 469,942 arrivals in 2021. This is a decrease of 40.2 percent compared to the same time period in 2019 where 785,338 tourist arrivals were recorded. However, this is an increase of 22.8 percent compared to the same period of 2020 where 382,816 tourist arrivals were recorded.
The top source market for the tourist arrivals is Russia with 111,628 tourists. India follows second with 89,499 arrivals while Germany stands at third with 25,935 tourist arrivals. Other markets for the Maldivian tourism industry include Ukraine, Kazakhstan, USA, United Kingdom, France and Czech Republic.
The island destination is open to tourists outside of South Asia, provided they have proof of a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken a maximum of 96 hours before departure from their original destination. All travellers arriving in the Maldives and travelling internally have to observe a mandatory quarantine of 14 days.
With the increase in vaccinated people in Maldives, and people receiving the second dose of vaccine, the Ministry had foreseen a better future for the tourism sector of Maldives in 2021. Although the pandemic disrupted global travel, the Maldives tourism industry is now slowly recovering from the initial impact of the pandemic and expects to receive over 1 million visitors in 2021.
