Maldives to reopen tourism

Special Desk

Maldivian sunset could be a reality soon as the Indian Ocean island nation is planning to open itself up to tourists from around the world with no Covid-19 reservations.

His Excellency President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has announced that the date for reopening Maldives for tourism after closure of the border on March 27 due to COVID_19 pandemic, said a statement from the ministry of tourism in Maldives.

As Maldives is planning to open borders on July 15 the ministry of tourism has published guidelines for restarting tourism in Malddives and a circular has been issued separately for the establishments.

This is a total reversal of the number of Covid-19-related travel restrictions the country had announced less than two weeks ago.

Starting July, tourists from all countries will be able to visit the Maldives visa-free, with no Covid-19 testing on either end of their flight to the destination, stay for as long as they like and not bother about self-quarantine either. So, in effect, it is back to business-as-usual in the tropical paradise, it seems. The Ministry of Tourism put out a notice saying “see you in July” when it says “the sun will shine in the Maldives again”.

This marks a departure from the long list of requirements the government was mulling only late last month. These included many firsts: a tourist visa that would cost around $100 (Rs7,600), a minimum 14-night stay, as well as producing a Covid-19 test result from no more than one week before arrival.

Tourists would have had to be tested again when they arrived in the country at an additional cost of $100. They would then have to quarantine in their hotel or resort room till they got their test results back in a few hours time.

Now all these restrictions are out the window and visitors can come and go as they please, like before the pandemic. The country that relies heavily on tourism dollars has been almost completely shut to visitors since March when the first cases of Covid-19 were detected on the islands. Maldives has had around 2,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 so far.

The only change tourists who have been to the island previously will notice is that the government is issuing safe tourism resort licences to resorts. To get this accreditation, resorts will have to meet government requirements on cleanliness training, allocate 10 percent of rooms and resort staff for guests in quarantine, train all staff to deal with an outbreak, have a medic on call and have an adequate amount of personal protection equipment in stock.