Maldives welcomes one millionth tourist of the year

On Friday, Maldives has welcomed the one millionth tourist for the year.

The one millionth tourist of 2021 is a France national, Vincent Pitau, who had traveled to the Maldives along with his wife. They were both given a very warm welcome at Velana International Airport.

Speaking to the media at the airport – Pitau said that this is the couple’s 20^th time in the Maldives. Their favorite activities in the Maldives is taking long walks on the beach and going snorkeling.

“Maldives is our favorite destination. Beaches are very nice. It is also nice to dive. Maldivians are very kind too,” the couple had said.

The couple said that becoming the one millionth tourist was a surprise for them. They also noted they had plans to visit Maldives on next February as well; for a period of two weeks.

As per the latest statistics from the Tourism Ministry – a total of 992,106 tourists had visited Maldives as of yesterday.

The most number of tourist arrivals were recorded in October – with over 100,000 tourists arriving so far this month.

The average number of daily arrivals to the Maldives stands at 4,494.

As of last Wednesday – the most number of tourist arrivals to the Maldives has been recorded from India, Russia, Germany, United States and Saudi Arabia respectively.

At the end of last year – Maldives had only recorded 555.494 tourist arrivals amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019 – the number of arrivals stood at 1.7 million.