Velana International airport recorded over 4,500 arrivals this Sunday. Tourism minister Abdulla Mausoom tweeted saying the tourism industry may recover in full by mid this year as vaccination is being carried across the Maldives.
So far by February 4th, 2021, more than 100,000 tourists have arrived in the Maldives. For January, a total of 92,103 tourists arrived averaging 2,971 per day however it is 4.5% less than the total that arrived in December 2020.
Most tourists arrived from Russia totaling 20,973 tourist arrivals while India was second with 19,135 tourist arrivals.
Normally this time of the year many Chinese tourists travel for the Chinese New Year escape however we may not see many Chinese tourist arrivals due to heavy travel restrictions enforced in China to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Maldives has maintained a tourist COVID-19 positivity rate under 0.09% consecutively for December 2020 and January 2021. Tourism Ministry aims to attract 1.5 million tourists for 2021.