Maldives tourist arrivals mark a half million pass

Maldives tourist arrival have marked the half million pass with an impressive 27.3 percent of arrivals originating from China, data been updated by the Tourism Ministry on Wednesday.

In the first six months of 2014 in total, 518,166 tourists have visited Maldives. Making it an 11.9 percent increase in comparison to the corresponding period of last year when 463,174 tourists visited the thousands of islands scattered in the Indian Ocean, famous for its white sandy beaches, turquoise lagoon, swaying palm trees and colorful coral reef gardens.

With 141,249 arrivals this year to date, China presently holds the record for the most tourist arrivals from a single country, accounting for 27.3 p.c of the tourists who entered the country.

A total of 253,602 tourists from Europe visited the country so far this year, mostly from Germany, making most tourist arrivals from European countries as a region.

Compared to the same period of last year, in the first five months of this year tourist arrivals from the Asia Pacific region have also increased by 24.7 p.c to 229,847.

The Maldives economy is heavily dependent on tourism, which has accounted for 28 percent of GDP on average in the past five years, having generated 38 percent of government revenue in 2012.