According to the latest Economic Update publicized by Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), the country’s tourist arrivals grew by 70% in December 2021.
The central bank’s statistics further confirmed that the tourist bed-nights in the last month of 2021 increased by 65% as well. Both improvements on tourist arrivals and bed-nights were compared with the corresponding month 2020.
However, the growth is still below pre-pandemic levels while tourist arrivals rose to 164,284 in December 2021, registering a decline of 4% compared with 171,348 arrivals in December 2019.
The annual increase in tourist arrivals reflected the “base effect of the slow pickup in tourist arrivals in the preceding year post border reopening, as well as a surge in arrivals from the main source markets during the peak season.”
During the review month, the largest number of tourist arrivals were recorded from India followed by Russia, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy.
Meanwhile, the operational bed capacity of the tourism industry had observed an increase of 10,966 beds when compared with the corresponding period in 2020. The occupancy rate rose to 62% in the review month from 48% in December of the year before that.
In annual terms, the tourist arrivals in 2021 increased by 138% while total bed-nights of the industry observed an overall increase of 149%.
Despite the strong growth in 2021 when compared with 2020, the tourist arrivals and bed-nights in annual terms still remain below pre-pandemic levels observed in 2019.