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Record number of tourists arrived in Maldives on Sunday, with over 5,000 arrivals

Lamya Abdulla
03 August 2021, MVT 12:51
(FILE) Photo taken in December 21, 2020, that shows tourists in the Velana International Airport -- Maldives has seen over 600,000 tourist arrivals this year -- Photo: Nishan Al/ Mihaaru
Lamya Abdulla
03 August 2021, MVT 12:51

Maldives saw a record number of tourists arrive on the first of August, since arrivals slowed down last year due to pandemic related restrictions.

Over 5,300 tourists arrived in Maldives on Sunday. This is the most number of tourists that entered the country within a single day this year. Tourist arrivals in Maldives slowed down last year after the COVID-19 halted the travel industry globally.

Tourist arrivals have been between 1,500 to 2,000 tourists on average since May 11 of this year. Arrivals started to increase again in July, occasionally with over 3,000 tourists arriving in a single day.

Maldives sees the most tourist arrivals on Saturdays and Sundays each week.

So far, over 600,000 tourists have arrived Maldives this year. This is 300,000 less than the amount of tourists that arrived within the first seven months of 2019, prior to the pandemic. However, it is an increase by 300,000 compared to the same period in 2020.

The increase in tourist arrivals aligns with the fact Maldives reopened its borders to South Asian countries in July, after temporarily closing them in May when COVID cases started to spike in the region.

Most of the tourists Maldives see at the moment is from Russia, followed by India, and then Germany. The government aims to bring in one million tourists to Maldives within the year. With the rate the arrivals are right now, Tourism Ministry projects that this is possible.

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