Amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, the tourist arrival numbers from both of these countries to the Maldives have become reflective of the geopolitical conflict.
The latest updates from the Ministry of Tourism revealed that the tourist arrivals from the top source market to the island nation; Russia, have gradually slowed down.
When statistics of the latest update; dated March 16 are compared with the previous update; dated March 9, the Russian tourism source market dropped its market share from 14.8 percent to 13.7 percent - indicating a week-on-week decline.
As of March 9, tourist arrivals from Russia stood at 48,173 whereas by March 16, tourist arrivals from the country reached 49,364. This means that from the week before to the most recent reviewed week, the tourist arrivals from Russia had increased by just 1,191 travelers.
On the other hand, Ukraine, which had stayed in the eighth spot of the top tourism source markets to the Maldives as of March 9, has relegated to the tenth spot by March 16.
The war-torn country's tourist arrivals from March 9-16 had not been significant, with an increment of only 72 arrivals recorded between the two review dates.
Furthermore, the market share of Ukraine fell from 2.5 percent as of March 9 to 2.3 percent by March 16; giving evidence to waning guest arrival numbers.
While Russia and Ukraine have been falling behind in their tourist arrival numbers due to the ongoing geopolitical conflict; two other countries have shown exceptional growth and momentum between the two review dates - the United Kingdom and India.
Out of the two, the United Kingdom has impressively maintained its market share of 11.3 percent between the two review periods (March 9 and March 16) while the tourist arrivals increased from 36,608 in the previous review week to 40,672 by the most recent review week.
This indicates an impressive tourist arrival increment of 4,064 travelers from the country in just a week. As of March 16, the United Kingdom remains as the second strongest source market; but may quite soon dethrone Russia from the top spot should the invasion continue further into the year.
India too had shown exceptional growth in its tourist arrival numbers to the island nation from 31,433 recorded in March 9 to hit 36,349 as of March 16- indicating growth in arrivals by 4,916 within a week, which also makes the country one of the fastest-growing source markets to the Maldives in 2022.
Moreover, India's market share increased from 9.7 percent on March 9 to 10.1 percent by March 16- which is reflective of the positive arrival growth.
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