Malé, Maldives – The latest statistics from the Tourism Ministry show that Maldives has recorded over 500،406 tourist arrivals so far in 2021.
Ministry of Tourism revealed that Maldives has recorded a total of 500،406 arrivals this year till June 26, 2021. As per the data from 23 June 2021, this is a decrease of 40.6 percent compared to the same time period in 2019 where the country welcomed 836,032 tourists. However, it is an increase of 29.7 percent compared to the same period of 2020 where only 382,816 tourist arrivals were recorded.
While India was initially the top source market for tourist arrivals earlier this year, Russia has beaten to it by having 24.3% shares in tourist arrivals with 120,514 Russian tourists as of June 23, 2021. India follows second with 89,599 arrivals while Germany stands at third with 27,151 tourist arrivals. Other markets in the top 10 market for the Maldivian tourism industry are Ukraine, USA, Kazakhstan, United Kingdom, Romania, France and Czech Republic, respectively.
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. The Ministry is already working on increasing the capacity available for tourists.
