Damage to tourism has been recovered: Adheeb

Minister of Tourism Ahmed Adheeb has said that the damage caused to the tourism sector has been recovered, and that tourist arrival has increased.

In an interview with Sun Online, Adheeb said that the number of tourists who arrived in Maldives decreased in February and March; but the numbers have gone up again last month and that the industry is recovering at a fast speed.

“We know that the recovery speed is fast by looking at the arrival numbers for last month. Compared with April 2011, there is no big difference. That indicates that recovery is good,” Adheeb said.

He said that the situation was bad when he took over the Ministry, but it has improved as a result of hard work, and money spent on PR firms over the past two months.

“We went to China, UK, and Germany; lifted the travel bans where they existed, and did a lot of similar things. After much effort, the charter flights from China have resumed. These are the reasons for improvement,” the Minister said.

Adheeb noted that the reason for increasing the construction capacity in resorts is to increase the number of beds per resort, which is part of the tourism master plan. This would also increase the gains to the tourism industry. The plan is to develop the tourism master plan based on the coming years, and the Ministry will play a major role in these efforts.

“We have a very capable civil service team. The recovery and improvements have been the result of their work and cooperation,” Adheeb said.

The tourism industry in Maldives was negatively affected by the change of government on 7 February, when international media began reporting the political turmoil in the country. The campaigns to boycott tourism in some parts of the world worsened the effects. Tourist arrival for March 2012 is 5.3 percent less when compared with that for March 2011.