Tourist Arrivals Hikes 2.2 Percent in August


Maldives
PUBLISHED September 26, 2018

The Ministry of Tourism has released the Maldives Tourism Performance Report which observes an increase of 2.2 percent in tourist arrivals in August.


In accordance to the statistics released by the Ministry Last Tuesday, 972,839 tourists have visited the Maldives till the end of August 2018. This is a 9.1% increase compared to 2017. Categorising by gender, 48% Males and 52% Females visited the Maldives during this period. The duration of stay of a tourist in the Maldives is an average of 6.4 days.

Moreover, the tourist arrivals to the Maldives is categorised by region. Europe (49%) and Asia & the Pacific (42%) are the major regions from which tourist visits the Maldives. Other regions include America (5%), Africa (1%) and the Middle East (4%).

The Tourism Performance Report also consists of the Accommodation Capacity and the Occupancy rate of the Maldives till August 2018.

The Accommodation Capacity has a total of 43,099 beds including Resorts, Guesthouses, Safari Vessels and Hotels. From which 30,341 beds are from Resorts, 8,134 beds from Guest Houses, 2,764 beds from Safari Vessels and 1,860 beds from Hotels.

The Occupancy rate, at the end of August 2018 is calculated to be 63% from which February had an occupancy rate of 81%. This is an increase of 12.3% bed nights compared to 2017. This is a total bed night of 6,270,308.

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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