The Maldives central bank – Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) – in their quarterly economic review has revealed the tourist arrivals to the island nation increased by 10% in the first half of 2018.
According to the report of MMA, a total of 726,515 tourists have visited Maldives during H1 2018, achieving almost half of the target of 1.5 million tourists for the year 2018, anticipated earlier by Maldives Tourism Ministry.
Tourist bednights reflected significant growth of 13% during the first half of 2018 – which is also an excess in the pace of tourist arrivals growth. This was mainly contributed by the pickup in the tourist average stay duration from 6.3 days in H1 2017 to 6.5 days during H1 2018.
Based on this increase in tourist arrivals and hike in tourist bednights, receipts from the tourism sector are estimated around USD 1.6 billion for the period which is a growth of 19% in annual terms.
Apart from the upswing in tourist arrivals, the number of registered resorts in operation increased from 124 in H1 2017 to 127 in H1 2018. In addition to this the guesthouse industry showed visible expansion in its outlets across the Maldives from 432 in H1 2018 to 490 in H1 2018.
Simultaneous to this the average operational bed capacity of the industry increased by 3,646 and reached a total of 41,290 which again is a 10% upsurge in annual terms.
Meanwhile the average occupancy rate of the tourism industry increased to 63% during the first half of 2018 whereas in the first half of 2017 the average occupancy rate stroke at 61 percent.
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