China continues to top the tourist arrival markets of the Maldives, as the seventh month of the year inches closer to ending.
This was revealed by the Ministry of Tourism through its latest daily tourist arrival statistics publicized on Thursday.
The tourism ministry revealed that China sits at the top of the list of tourist source markets, contributing 13 percent of the market share with 147,241 arrivals by July 23.
The new year began with Italy topping the tourist arrival markets of the island nation, however it was replaced by Russia for a few weeks.
Although the United Kingdom ranked second place for a while, it was replaced by Russia once more.
Russia now contributes 10.6 percent of the market share with 120,366 arrivals recorded so far.
Russia dominated the tourist arrival markets of the Maldives by the end of 2023.
UK currently ranks third place in the top 10 markets, contributing 8.9 percent of the market share with 101,402 arrivals.
Although India was among the top three source markets into the beginning of the year, it was replaced by China.
Other top tourist markets so far in 2024 are:
- Italy contributing 7.5 percent with 85,014 arrivals
- Germany contributing 7.4 percent with 84,345 arrivals
- India contributing 6.1 percent with 69,453 arrivals
- United States contributing 3.6 percent with 40,519 arrivals
- France contributing 3.1 percent with 35,181 arrivals
- Switzerland contributing 2.1 percent with 24,067 arrivals
- Spain contributing 1.8 percent with 20,813 arrivals
Although Poland was included among the top 10 tourist source markets halfway into the year, it was recently replaced by Spain.
The ministry’s statistics go on to reveal that Maldives has welcomed a total of 1,136,047 visitors since between January 1 – July 23.
Maldives welcomed 1.8 million tourists in 2023 and aspires to welcome two million tourists this year.
Tourist arrivals for this year include:
- 192,385 visitors welcomed during January
- 217,392 visitors welcomed during February
- 194,227 visitors welcomed during March
- 168,366 visitors welcomed during April
- 119,875 visitors welcomed during May
- 123,284 visitors welcomed during June
Arrivals so far this year, are a 9.5 percent increase from the 1,037,046 arrivals recorded in the same period last year, and a significant growth from the 913,432 arrivals recorded in 2022.
The daily average for 2024 so far, is 5,542 and tourists are staying for an average of eight days.
The highest number of tourist arrivals recorded on a daily basis so far this year, was on February 10, when more than 10,000 tourist arrivals were recorded.
120,518 tourist arrivals were recorded between July 1 – 23.
The arrivals for the seventh month of the year, are a 12.2 percent growth in comparison to the 107,439 arrivals recorded in the same period last year.
Further, it is higher than the 100,213 arrivals recorded in the same period of 2022.
About 5,240 tourists arrived on average every day during the ongoing month, and tourists are staying for eight days.
Looking at the daily arrivals for July
- 5,342 tourists were welcomed on July 1
- 4,425 tourists were welcomed on July 2
- 5,240 tourists were welcomed on July 3
- 4,492 tourists were welcomed on July 4
- 5,127 tourists were welcomed on July 5
- 5,181 tourists were welcomed on July 6
- 5,114 tourists were welcomed on July 7
- 5,466 tourists were welcomed on July 8
- 4,169 tourists were welcomed on July 9
- 5,512 tourists were welcomed on July 10
- 4,735 tourists were welcomed on July 11
- 5,486 tourists were welcomed on July 12
- 5,375 tourists were welcomed on July 13
- 5,400 tourists were welcomed on July 14
- 5,773 tourists were welcomed on July 15
- 4,793 tourists were welcomed on July 16
- 5,886 tourists were welcomed on July 17
- 4,823 tourists were welcomed on July 18
- 5,552 tourists were welcomed on July 19
- 5,458 tourists were welcomed on July 20
- 5,922 tourists were welcomed on July 21
- 6,075 tourists were welcomed on July 22
- 5,172 tourists were welcomed on July 23
Welcoming the first tourist of 2024 to the Maldives back in January, Minister of Tourism Ibrahim Faisal noted that it was a fantastic start to what promises to be another successful year for the Maldives’ tourism industry. He expressed keen interest in diversifying and exploring additional markets to reach this year’s arrival target.
Maldives welcomed the one millionth tourist of the year, six months in, on June 27.
The Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) hosted a ceremony at Velena International Airport (VIA) to welcome Sutapa Amornvivat, a national from Thailand as the one millionth tourist of the year.
The ceremony was held in collaboration with the tourism ministry, Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL), Maldives Immigration and Maldives Customs Service and multiple other industry stakeholders.
The millionth tourist of the year arrived by an AirAsia Flight on vacation with her family. She was offered a special holiday from Sun Siyam Resorts, at the ceremony.
This was her third trip to the island nation and she stayed at Niyama Maldives.
Tourism was introduced in the Maldives in 1972. It has been 52 years since zealous travelers have been visiting the Maldives which has been drawing in visitors with its picturesque beauty for years.
