Maldives Tourism received its 500,000th tourist (Year-to-date) of the Covid-hit 2020 on Thursday, December 17, 2020 as the German Kirstin Madeleine Nittke arrived at Maldives’ Velana International Airport amidst awaiting tourism officials, a grand welcome, cultural events and gifts, souvenirs and holiday vouchers.
Year 2019 was big for Maldives tourism prompting it to set a target of 2 million tourist arrivals in 2020 before Covid-19 intervened. The Indian Ocean island nation had achieved its target of 1.5 million tourist arrivals in 2019 well ahead in the month of November with the total year end arrivals surpassing 1.7 million tourists. Maldives is expecting to reach 1.5 million tourist arrivals in 2021.
Maldives opened to tourism in July and has since carried out some aggressive promotion and marketing thorough webinars, campaigns, fam tours and more. It launched ‘Rediscover Maldives…the sunny side of life’ in July as it opened to win back tourist for the rest of 2020. The efforts have since paid as the destination welcomed it 100,000th guest since opening in mid-July only a week ago, and 500,000 between January-2020 until now.
Commenting on the milestone,Maldivian Minister of Tourism, Dr. Abdulla Mausoom, said, “Surpassing this milestone in this challenging year in advance of the forecasted date is the result of combined efforts of tourism industry partners and the government. It is the result of HEP Solih’s timely decisions backed by the tourism industry partners’ determination to revive our tourism industry. Thanks to travel and tourism industry partners, employees, and associations.”
“I take this opportunity to convey heartfelt appreciation to the Health Protection Agency, health professionals, related government authorities, and volunteers for their hard work to brand the Maldives as a safe and secure destination to the international community,” added the minister.
“Amidst such a pandemic, it is a remarkable feat to keep on achieving such milestones. We welcomed the 100,000th visitor since the border reopening just a few days ago and today we are celebrating the arrival of the 500,000th visitor for the year. This is, indeed, the result of joint efforts by the entire tourism industry in both the public and private sector. I would like to congratulate everyone for their hard work in making this year such a successful one,” remarked Thoyyib Mohamed, the Managing Director of MMPRC.
Also commenting, Andrew Gordon, CEO & MD of MACL, said, “So much effort has been put in place for this day and I can honestly say that Team Maldives did exceptionally well in promoting destination Maldives as a safe place to visit. We believe that we have contributed our part in maintaining our high safety standards at Velana International Airport and with our attractive incentive packages to our partner airlines.”
“I would like to continue to assure our guests that Velana International Airport will maintain its high standards of safety until vaccines are successfully administered,” added Andrew.
