Heavily tourism-reliant island nation Maldives, on Friday, recorded a daily total of 4,700 tourist arrivals, marking the highest number of arrivals recorded till date in 2021.
In a tweet celebrating this feat, Minister of Tourism Dr Abdulla Mausoom thanked all the members of the industry for their efforts towards tourism recovery in Maldives.
“With nationwide COVID-19 vaccination in progress, [the] tourism outlook is very promising”, he added.
As per the statistics publicised by the tourism ministry, Maldives recorded 124,753 tourist arrivals in 2021 by February 12. This is a 45.6 percent decrease compared to the 229,280 recorded during the same period of 2020.
The decrease in arrivals can be mostly attributed to the travel restrictions implemented across the globe due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19.
The pandemic-ridden 2020 wrapped up with the country noting only 555,000 incoming tourists, a stark difference compared to the 1.7 million travellers that holidayed across the archipelago in 2019.
Like many other countries around the world, with the local emergence of COVID19 infections, Maldives closed its borders in March 2020. However, after reopening gates and easing restrictions in the following July, the island nation managed to attract 172, 366 tourists before 2020 drew to an end.
On average, Maldives recorded 3,000 arrivals per day after the country opened up for travel, peaking at 4,200 per day during December.
According to the tourism ministry, the goal for 2021 remains to draw at least 1.5 million tourists to Maldives, for which the country must either maintain an average of 4000 arrivals daily throughout the year or experience a significant influx during (foreign) holiday periods.
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