The record for daily tourist arrivals has been shattered with the highest number of visitors ever recorded in a single day, Tourism Minister Ibrahim Faisal said today.
A total of 10,213 tourists are expected to arrive today, Faisal said in a tweet. The new record comes a week after the old record was set with more than 8,900 daily tourist arrivals.
Arrivals have surged due to the increasing number of tourists from China, the number one market before the covid pandemic, and from traditional top markets in Western Europe.
China is currently the top source market for tourists to the Maldives, followed by Italy, Russia, UK and India, according to statistics from the Tourism Ministry.
Before last week, the previous daily tourist arrivals record after the reopening of borders was set on February 11, 2023 with 8,028 visitors.
The record was broken with 8,900 tourist arrivals on February 3 this year. Tourist arrivals also exceeded last year's record with 8,032 arrivals on the following day (Sunday, February 4).
With the record numbers, the average daily tourist arrivals grew to unprecedented levels with an average of 7,391 arrivals for the first six days of February. The figure usually hovers around 6,000.
A total of 236,730 tourist arrivals for the year were recorded as of last Thursday. The government's target for 2024 is a record two million visitors.
