Tourist Arrivals Hikes 10 percent In July


Maldives
PUBLISHED August 18, 2018

The tourism ministry has revealed that tourist arrivals have increased for the first six months of 2018 by 10.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

A total of 726,515 tourists had visited the Maldives up to June 2018, despite a state of emergency and travel warnings triggered by an ongoing political crisis. In 2017 the figure was 657,542.

A total of 93,786 tourists visited in June 2018, up from 85,222 in 2017.

Europe held the largest market share for the first two quarters of 2018, with 51.3 per cent of all visitors coming from the region.

The Maldivian Government has leased dozens of uninhabited islands to local and foreign resort developers over the past five years. As such, a number of international brands have entered into the Maldivian market, increasing the number of resorts to 120. That number is set to increase as the government has announced the opening of some 20 new resorts over the next two years.

Along with the new resort openings, the guesthouse sector is also rapidly expanding in order to meet the increasing demand from budget travellers who choose guesthouses over luxury resorts that the Maldives is known for.

The government last year announced new steps to maintain a structured growth in tourism, including a slowdown in leasing islands for resort development and increased marketing efforts in key markets such as China and the Middle East in order to reach an ambitious target of a record 1.5 million tourist arrivals this year.
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