Study shows over MVR 385 mn spent annually to travel to Male for health care

Recent study has shown that most part of domestic travel in Maldives was made up of people from atolls who traveled to Male’ for health care. And that over MVR 385 million was spent annually for such trips.

Findings from “Study on Domestic Tourism in the Maldives” by Tourism Ministry shows that Maldivians spent MVR 691.9 million on domestic travel in 2015. MVR 583.8 million was spent by people living in atolls – who spent most of that money to travel to Male’ City for health care.

66 percent expenses for domestic travel by people from atolls was spent to travel to Male’ City for health care, while 63 percent of domestic travel expenses by people living in Male’ City was for leisure.

Information for the study, which was carried out by Tourism Ministry as part of United Nations Development Program (UNDP) funded project – Tourism Adaptation Project (TAP) – was collected from Male’ City and 20 atolls.

The study – the first of its kind done in Maldives - was carried out by FJVS Consultancy.

Some of the findings of the study were revealed in a special ceremony at Tourism Ministry on Monday.

“Main purpose is to find out how it is, and is not. Second, being that it’s a baseline study to find out how and for what we spend on domestic travel,” said Moosa Zameer Hassan from Tourism Ministry.