In the wake of concerns over the continued tourism slide in the Maldives for the past few years, the luxury holiday destination recorded a six percent hike in arrivals at the end of October to go past one million tourist arrivals so far this year.
According to official tourism statistics, the archipelago had recorded 1,125,995 arrivals by the end of October which is a six percent increase from 1,062,033 arrivals in the corresponding period last year.
The predominant Europe market, shows a 10.7 percent hike from last year with 462,528 arrivals by October with Germany topping the arrivals chart. UK however, recorded a minor decline while tourists from Italy increased sharply from 55,044 last year to 67,094 this year. The hike was more significant in arrivals from Russia with 32.4 percent.
The surprising new market for the Maldives in US continued to increase with over 18 percent to reach a shade over 30,000 so far this year.
However, the highest tourist contributor to the Maldives in the recent past China, continued to slide with 8.2 percent, down from 289,123 last year to 265,417 by October. Indian tourists registered a considerable increase with 25.4 percent rise from last year.
According to latest figures and trend, Maldives remains on course to reach its target 1.3 million tourists by the end of the year.
