20 January 2022 04:15 am
The year 2022 has started off with a bang for the Maldives tourism sector, as over 24,000 tourists visited the country within the first few days of January.
Data from the Tourism Ministry of the Republic of Maldives showed that from January 1 to 5, the archipelago welcomed a total of 24,527 guests.
The arrivals in the first five days of the month are a 56.4 percent increase when compared with the corresponding period in 2021.
The figure is a few thousands less than the 27,314 arrivals recorded during 2020 but higher in comparison to the 22,121 arrivals recorded in the same period of 2019.
Russia emerged as the largest source market, as it accounted for 27.3 percent of total arrivals. In Sri Lanka too, the highest number of arrivals for January thus far has been from Russia.
Following Russia’s lead in the Maldives is Italy, accounting for 12.96 percent of the traffic and Germany, with 6.8 percent.
Other notable contributors to the tourism traffic were India (6 percent), the UK (6 percent) and Ukraine (4.8 percent).
The Maldives ended 2021 on a high note by meeting its arrival target. By the end of 2021, an excess of 1.32 million tourists visited the country.