The Maldives welcomed its one millionth tourist for the year 2023 today. The one millionth tourist arrival occurred on August 12th of last year, putting this year’s achievement one month ahead of schedule and on track to meet H.E President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s national arrival objective of 1.8 million tourists by the end of 2023. Mr Anton Pavlov, a British native who landed on British Airways flight BA061 this morning with his family, was this year’s one millionth tourist. The family was brought to the celebration location by a cultural performance and was greeted by Senior Ministry Officials. Anton, this year’s one millionth traveller, got commemorative gift packs from the MoT, MMPRC, MACL, Maldives Immigration, and the tourism industry. MMPRC’s gift bundle included a selection of locally sourced products that are important for a Maldives vacation.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic era, the Chinese market continuously topped the arrival records, and is already firmly in the top 4th source market slot for the Maldives in 2023, with a phenomenal 1,659.5% gain in comparison to the same period previous year. So far this year, the top five markets for the Maldives have been Russia, India, the United Kingdom, China, and Germany. India had consistently ranked first in terms of arrivals, particularly post-covid. India is now ranked second in terms of arrivals, having surpassed pre-pandemic arrival numbers in 2021.
Among the numerous innovative marketing events held by MMPRC this year, the Visit Maldives Storytellers’ Conference 2023 (from May 30th to June 2nd, 2023) is expected to boost arrivals even more in the coming months. This spectacular event, which took place during the low season to encourage arrivals, resulted in simultaneous coverage of numerous distinct regions of the Maldives, which made a prominent presence globally, receiving over 89,517,434 reach on the Visit Maldives social media channels alone.
178 marketing initiatives were carried out by MMPRC in 2022. This comprised more than 90 marketing initiatives, participation in 44 fairs, organisation of 6 roadshows, 10 virtual events, 18 familiarisation trips, and 10 more international events.
