More than 300,000 tourists among those who visited the Maldives so far this year have spent their holidays in guesthouses, statistics show. So far this year, a total of 1.3 million international tourists have arrived in the Maldives.
In total, 1,379,151 tourists have arrived in the country so far this year, the latest official statistics published by the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation show. This inbound volume represents a 3.9 per cent decrease compared with the total of 1,435,661 tourist arrivals recorded during the corresponding period last year.
Resorts remain the primary accommodation choice for inbound travellers, hosting 992,462 visitors, while local guesthouses accommodated 300,469 guests and hotels registered 31,723 arrivals, a detailed breakdown of accommodations shows. An additional 25,207 tourists spent their holidays on safari vessels.
Among the international source markets driving these arrivals, China constitutes the leading origin of visitors. Specifically, China leads the market with 250,437 arrivals, followed by Russia with 198,748 visitors and the United Kingdom with 105,785 tourists, ministry records document.
This distribution of travellers comes as the government pursues a targeted national campaign to expand local guesthouse businesses across the country. There are currently guesthouses operating on 116 local islands across 20 administrative atolls, which have added 17,188 beds to the nation’s overall tourism capacity.