Maldives tourism moves forward this holiday season where the destination is looking forward to break yet another record of welcoming over 5,000 tourist arrivals in a day. According to Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL), the World’s Leading Destination 2020 will welcome 5,831 tourists today.
With 122,245 tourist arrivals since border reopening, Maldives has welcomed a total of 505,092 tourists as of 18th December 2020. This marks surpassing the 500,000th tourist arrival in 2020 way ahead of forecast on on 17th December.
As per the markets, looking at the total arrivals after border reopening, Russia remains the top with 23,226 tourists (19% of market share). This is followed by India with 18,758 tourists (15,3% market share). United Kingdom has jumped to third position with 12,372 with USA at number fourth with 6,715. Other top source markets after the border reopening includes United Arab Emirates, Germany, Ukraine, France, Spain and Brazil.
As of 18th December 2020, Maldives has 458 tourist facilities operational with 39,193 beds. This is with 138 resorts/marinas accumulating to 32,212 beds followed by 182 guesthouses with 3,402 beds, 129 safari vessels with 2,497 beds and 9 hotels with 1,082 beds.
Maldives reopened borders to all nationalities from 15th July 2020. All visitors are granted a 30-day free on-arrival visa with a confirmed booking for a stay at any registered tourist facility in the country.
Maldives has also extended ‘Split Stay’ for all types of tourist accommodation facilities, allowing tourists to split their stay between resort, hotels, guesthouses and liveaboard boats, with prior approval as per split-stay procedure and guideline by the Ministry of Tourism.
While there is no mandatory quarantine or testing on arrival, tourists traveling to Maldives are required to complete an online health declaration form and provide a negative PCR test result taken at least 96 hours prior to their departure.
The negative PCR test result must be attached while completing Traveler Health Declaration form, which has to be submitted online via IMUGA (www.imuga.immigration.gov.mv), by all arriving passengers before arrival (but not exceeding 24 hours before arrival time).
