Achieving yet another milestone of Visit Maldives Year 2016, Maldives welcomed the one millionth visitor of 2016 at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport. Alefiya Merchant from India who arrived on Air India flight with Ali Asgar Godhrawala for their honeymoon in Maldives was warmly welcomed by Akhilesh Mishra, the High Commissioner of India to the Maldives, Hussain Lirar and Shazail Shiyam, Deputy Ministers of Tourism, Haris Mohamed, Acting Managing Director of Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) and other senior officials from the Ministry of Tourism, MMPRC, Maldives Airports Company Limited and representatives of the tourism industry.
Upon arrival, they were welcomed at the arrival terminal by officials from MMPRC, Department of Immigration and Maldives Airports Company, from where they were escorted to the VIP lounge in a procession of traditional Boduberu performance.
Mishra awarded them with a commemorative plaque. A special gift was also awarded by Mohamed. The Lucky honeymoon couple also received a complimentary holiday package from Hurawalhi Resort. The prize was presented by Shazail Shiyam, Deputy Minister of Tourism and Cherry Zhuang, Sales and Marketing Manager of Crown and Champa Resorts.
Since the grand welcoming of the first visitor of Visit Maldives Year in the early morning of the 1st of January, milestones of reaching 500,000th and 750,000th were colourfully celebrated.
An Indian National being the distinguished one millionth visitor is of great significance to the Maldives providing a great opportunity to promote the Maldives as a tourist destination to the Indian market. India is a rapidly growing market having attained its position within the top ten single source markets climbing up to reaching amongst the top 5 source markets to the Maldives.
Arrivals from India show a positive growth of 21.5 per cent from January to July when compared to the same period in 2015. During this period in 2016 a total of 34,884 Indian tourists are recorded to have arrived in Maldives.
