Tourist arrivals declines by 7.8 percent

Number of tourists who visited the Maldives this January went down by 7.8 percent compared to the corresponding period last year.

An analysis conducted by the Ministry of Tourism shows 105,296 tourists visited the country in January of 2014. This number has gone down to 97,073 this year.

The number of Chinese tourists who visited Maldives has depleted to new lows according to records. Tourist arrivals from China went down from 30,912 last year to 20,469 this year, but China is still the biggest market in the industry.

The occupancy rate has gone down as well to 73.9 percent after an 8.5 percent loss from last year.

Since the tourist numbers have gone from China, tourist arrivals is highest now from the European market. The number of Italian, British and German tourists has gone up.

The number of tourists visiting the country has been plummeting for the past four months.