With a decrease in arrivals from China, the total number of tourist arrivals in the Maldives dropped by 2.1 percent in March, announced the Ministry of Tourism.
This is the first time that tourist influx to the Maldives dropped this year. The number of tourists hailing from the archipelago’s largest market of China went down by 16 percent with only 18,203 tourists.
According to Tourism Ministry’s statistics, the Maldives recorded total 112,665 tourist arrivals in March, while the number in the same period last year was 115, 131.
Statistics show that tourist arrivals from the Maldives’ main European markets had also significantly dropped. Tourists from the United Kingdom went down by 9.3 percent to 11,095 and arrivals from Germany by 23 percent to 10,216. However, the number of tourists from Italy had spiked by nine percent.
The ministry’s report also shows that tourists from the Asia-Pacific region had gone down by 2.5 percent to 40,302 and the Middle-east region by 8.3 percent. The highest increase in tourist arrivals in March was from India with a spike of 15.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the total number of tourists in the first quarter of this year is 4.3 percent higher than in 2016. However, the bed occupancy rates of tourists dropped from 70.9 to 60.7 percent.
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