According to Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) on their latest Quarterly Economic Bulletin, the tourism industry of the country showed modest recovery during the third quarter of 2021.
Moreover, the industry made recovery following a slowdown in the preceding second quarter of the current year.
In central bank’s report, it was noted that the recovery of the economic sector was mainly reflected from the removal of travel ban on visitors from South Asian region, thereby driving up the influx of arrivals from India during the review quarter.
Other reasons that played in favor of boosting the activities of the industry include seasonal factors as well as influx of transit tourists.
Meanwhile, international tourist arrivals to Maldives still remain below pre-pandemic levels. However, tourist arrivals gradually improved owing to reopening of several tourist destinations as well as fast rollout of vaccination programs.
On the other hand, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) claims that the international tourist arrivals to all tourist destinations across the world, declined by 80% during January to July 2021 compared to the same period in 2019 and by 40% compared with 2020.
Furthermore, a total of 360,313 tourist arrivals to the Maldives were recorded during the third quarter of 2021 – whereas during the corresponding quarter of 2020 only 18,993 arrivals were recorded.
In addition to this, daily arrival average doubled from around 1,900 in June to approximately 3,800 in September. Moreover, tourist bed nights increased by 39% despite a decline in average stay from 11.0 days in Q3-2020 to 8.9 days in Q3-2021.
Europe continues to remain as the main market to Maldives in regional terms, accounting to 44% of the total arrivals, while Asian market increased to 34% during the review quarter.