In July 2019, the number of
tourists that visited Maldives had reached a total number of 994,733, while at
present the number has reached a milestone with a million tourists stepping
foot onto the Maldivian soil. The millionth visitor reached Maldives on August
2, informs the Ministry of Tourism.
In comparison to 2018, there had
been an 8 percent increase in the number of tourist arrivals this year, 2019. According
to the statistics of Maldives Immigration and from tourist facilities registered
under the Ministry of Tourism, it has been deduced that 132,144 of tourists
visited in the month of July only, rising a 17.2 percent in growth of tourism in contrast
to 2018.
Statistics of tourist arrivals till
July 2019, shows that with a market share of 49 percent, the most holidaymakers were
identified from Europe with a number of 487,165 contributing a 16.0 percent increase compared to last year. Asia
Pacific followed behind with a market share of 41.5 percent with 413,066 tourist
arrivals till July this year and 64,281 arrivals in July only. This recorded a growth
of 17.4 percent over the years. In addition, America was observed to have a market share
of 5 percent with a total of 49,821 tourists visiting in-between June-July.
With 34,784 arrivals from the
Middle East, the market share reached 3.5 percent while Africa with 1 percent
of market share had 9,730 arrivals in Maldives over the past 7 months.
China was observed as the main
contributor to the Maldives tourism followed by India with a market share of
17.4 percent bringing in 172,834 tourists which led to an increase of 7.6
percent of visitors.
As the Maldives closest neighbor,
India claims the second spot retaining a market share of 9.4 percent with a heavy
percentage of growth in visitors during June-July 2019.
Arrivals from Italy increased by
32.3 percent to reach 80,713 with a market share of 8.1 percent and acquired the
third place in arrivals for the end of July. UK claimed the fourth position with
a market share of 7.4 percent, raising the percentage of the arrivals to 11.1
percent to reach 73,262 whilst Germany fell to the fifth position with a market
share of 7.2 percent reaching 71,479 in visitor numbers for the first half of
2019.
Other countries that followed
behind were France (4.6 percent), USA (3.2 percent), Japan (2.6 percent) and
lastly Australia with 2.4 percent.
In 2018, a record of 1.4 million
tourists were welcomed in the Maldives. The government expects the number of
tourists to reach an ambitious target of 1.5 million over the next four months.
Meanwhile, the new government has
pledged to ramp up tourism promotion. Reflecting the new governments pledge,
the state budget for 2019 includes MVR 104,200,000 (USD 6.7 million) for
tourism promotion, up from MVR 34,733,333 (USD 2.2 million) this year and
the previous year.
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