The one exception from the economic sectors of Maldives, that showed more than moderate growth, tourism sector continued to depict a robust performance during the first of 2019.
The tourism sector’s strong growth was bolstered by strong demand from the European and the Asia and Pacific region. This was coupled with growth in flight movements and improved connectivity.
It was reported that the number of scheduled flights to Maldives observed an annual growth of 18% when compared to the corresponding period of 2018. This translates to an increase of over 1,000 flights to the island nation.
The main reason behind the significant improvement in flight movement is contributed by the new airlines such as Indigo and GoAir which commenced their operations in late 2018. In addition to this, increased flight movements from existing long-haul airlines such as Qatar Airways and Etihad and the recommencement of Oman Air also were added factors for the increase in flight movements.
The total tourist arrivals to Maldives during the first half of 2019 observed an upsurge of 19% overall, which translates to a total of 862,589 arrivals. This is an impressive growth in the number of arrivals since the total number of arrivals in the corresponding period last year was 726,515.
The growth was largely attributed to the higher European arrivals, which accounted for 50% of the total arrivals while the arrivals from Asia and the Pacific grew significantly during the first half of 2019 as well, which in a combined manner accounted for 40% of the total arrivals.
European arrivals grew by 17% in annual terms, which comes due to strong growth from source markets such as Italy with 34% increase, Germany with 20%, Franc with 23% and UK with 13% and Russia with 12 percent.
Arrivals from Asia and Pacific region increased by 20% during the period which comes predominantly from the staggering growth of almost 100% in arrivals from India.
China, the single largest source market accounted for 16% of total tourist arrivals while the country’s tourist arrivals maintained its growth trajectory since the beginning of the year while the arrivals went on to increase by 10 percent.
The growth in tourist arrivals to the country also mirrored international trends in tourism, as the international tourist arrivals increased annually by 4% during the first quarter of the year. Maldives performed significantly better during the same period with a growth of 15% in annual terms.
Furthermore, tourist bed-nights posted strong growth of 15%, which was majorly driven by the rise in bed-nights from resorts followed by guesthouses operating in the country.
The growth was reflected by the remarkable growth in tourist arrivals as the average stay declined during the period.
The average duration of stay in the first half of 2019 was 6.3 days down from the 6.5 days compared to the corresponding period in 2018.
Receipts from the tourism sector were estimated at USD1.7 billion during H1-2019 which is a growth of 7 percent.
The number of resorts had also increased from 129 during H1-2018 to 142 in the first half of 2019. Likewise, guesthouses in operation went up from 477 in H1-2018 to 542 in the corresponding period in 2019.
This resulted in the increase of the operational bed capacity in the sector by 11% which totals at 45,772 beds. Moreover, the average occupancy rate also increased to 66% in H1-2019 from 63% in the corresponding period of last year.