Only 34,847 Indians arrived in the Maldives in January to March Quarter this year compared to 56,208 Indian passengers in the same quarter last year. The numbers are a drop of 38 percent and even lower than the Q1 of 2019 when 36,053 Indian passengers visited Maldives. While India was the number one source market for Maldives post COVID from 2021 to 2023, the drop has started to be seen this year.
This comes amidst the India Out Campaign by Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu and the subsequent Boycott Maldives trends from Indians. The Issue got more attention after PM Modi visited the Lakshadweep Islands and social media took to the trend of Visit Lakshadweep started along with Boycott Maldives, not just celebrities and social media influencers, but even online travel agencies decide to join the trend.
A lot of many doubted if the trend was real or fake (just to join the social media frenzy) Numbers now indicate that the trend was real. Not only India has dropped as a source market, but the absolute numbers are also down.
The Chinese who were topmost inbound tourists to the island nation pre-Covid, have regained the title as China opens up for more tourists to travel out after nearly four years of embargo in some form or the other, formal or informal.
In 2018, just under one lakh Indians visited Maldives whereas the 2.83 lakh tourists from China were recorded in Maldives. While the Chinese numbers remained constant, Indians increased to 1.6 lakhs in 2019.
The year 2021 was the watershed years with 2.91 lakh Indians on the back of restrictions the world over for tourists due to Covid and Maldives being open subject to RT-PCR tests. Only 2238 Chinese visited Maldives in 2021 as the Chinese were under strict lockdowns. The first quarter of 2024 has seen both Indians and Chinese tourists being fewer than the 2019 benchmark, but over the previous year while Indians are down nearly 40 percent, the Chinese have nearly tripled.
A look at the data showed by Cirium, an Aviation analytics company shows that the India-Maldives market saw eight fewer flights per week in the January to March quarter of the year and saw the reduction of a little over 2,000 weekly seats. However, the frequencies have remained the same when compared to 2024, albeit with higher capacity on offer. This indicates all is not well for the market.
An average week in the Q1 (Jan-March) this year saw 21 weekly flights by Indigo, fourteen by Vistara and six weeklies by Air India. Maldivians operated ten times in the week in India. Compared to last year, IndiGo has pulled out of the Delhi-Male market, while Go FIRST shut down. It had 10 weekly flights to Male from India.
Maldivian pulled out of Hanimaadhoo to Trivandrum route. Vistara did not operate pre-COVID, but SpiceJet and Go FIRST had larger operations and the same was the case with Maldivian. The reduction in flights is a mix of seasonality, lack of aircraft and the demand trend. Especially after the social media frenzy.
Nationalism coupled with the availability of other options at times at much cheaper rate is what is driving Indian tourism out of Maldives and the world over. With the ease of visa for Vietnam and Indonesia along with direct connectivity coupled with visa free travel to Thailand and Malaysia, the once famous Maldives not being popular as any more becomes clear.
In the next months there will be 57 weekly flights and 14,117 weekly seats each way between India and Vietnam on non-stop flights. For Indonesia, there are 21 weekly flights with 4697 weekly seats on offer.
For Malaysia, there are 206 weekly flights and 38629 weekly seats on offer each way, while for Thailand these numbers stand at 266 weekly flights and 52696 seats each way. Compare that to Maldives which have only 47 weekly flights with 8108 seats each way.
Maldives is considered as an expensive destination with almost a resort per island setting The COVID times were hard times for the hospitality industry and the mix of rate drop and acceptance during the pandemic saw travellers make the most of it.
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