Maldives sees record tourist arrivals in October

October this year has seen the most tourists visit Maldives in a month of October.

According to statistics released by the Tourism Ministry yesterday, 153,737 tourists arrived in Maldives in October last year. That, compared to 159,141 tourists last month, is an increase of 3.5 percent.

Announcing that it was a new record, in November of that year, the Ministry of Tourism said that the number of tourists arriving in October was an eight percent increase compared to the number of tourists visiting in 2019 and 2021.

The number of tourists arriving in Maldives till the eighth of this month increased by 12.8 percent when compared to the same period last year. The number of tourists arrived in Maldives during the same period last year was 1.38 million, which increased to 1.56 million this year.

The largest number of tourists are coming from Russia this year. Maldives has welcomed 180,001 tourists from Russia, compared to 168,070 from India, which held the top spot, last year.

The other top source markets for tourist arrivals are:

• China - 166,437
• UK - 126,759
• Germany - 111,817
• Italy - 92,616
• USA - 60,871
• France - 41,763
• Spain - 33,578
• Switzerland - 30,738

The initial target for Maldives' tourism this year was to attract 1.8 million tourists. However, during the presidential campaign, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih raised the target figure to 1.9 million.