Tourism ministry has revealed that the Maldives has observed a 4.9 percent increase in occupancy so far this year.

According to official figures, Maldives has sustained an average occupancy of 73 percent up to this point of the year which is an increment of 4.9 percent from the corresponding period last year.

The Maldives tourism industry was hit with declining occupancy during the state of emergency when several countries including China, India, US, Europe, UK had issued varying degrees of travel advisories to their citizens following the political turmoil Maldives faced in February this year.

However, the expected fallout on Maldives tourism by the declaration failed to take place as the island destination recorded an 18.5 percent increase in tourist arrivals last month.

Despite the stark travel advisories during the period, Europe continued to dominate the arrivals and had registered a 33 percent increase from last year.

The only decline was from the Asia Pacific region while the slowdown in Chinese tourists also continued with 72,539 arrivals compared to the marginally higher 73,135 last year.