Tourism minister has stated it could take up to year and a half to recover to pre-pandemic levels after the island nation re-opens its borders.
The minister had told reporters previously that he was had confidence that demand would pick up once the border is open. But believed that it would be a year and a half to recover to its previous state.
The minister also highlighted that the tourism industry would need extra funding and the current stimulus package is only designed for three months period to help keep the business afloat.
The Maldivian government was quite keen to open the Maldives in the third quarter and hope it would do so. But the government has already created scenarios and timelines for reopening the borders for the tourism sector. This year the government had targeted 2 million tourists but failed due to the COVID-19 and the government accounted for major losses in revenue.
The coronavirus had hit the Maldives economy every hard with travel restriction previously placed by the countries which affected much of the tourism sector. As a major source of income is accounted for from the tourism industry the government would now have to look for another source of income.
As the government claims agriculture and fisheries would still bring in revenue much has yet to been seen with new plans are still in the works and the government has already stated that it would relive the new campaign on 8th June under the name “Sun will shine again”. This campaign would show how the country plans to reopen it tourism doors.
Currently much is unclear on how the country would move forward in getting itself back up from the COVID-19 as case number grows the situation has not improved thus far.
