News Desk
Tourism Minister Mohamed Ameen said on Tuesday that the $500 million loss figure cited by industry groups is not a number the government endorses or has verified, even as he acknowledged that tourist arrivals fell sharply in March and April before showing signs of recovery in May.
Speaking at a Cabinet Committee briefing on war damage reduction, Ameen said the Tourism Ministry was still looking into how the figure was calculated. “It is not the figures we endorse or verify that the industry is losing $500 million,” he said. He added that the government was not providing assistance to the tourism sector directly linked to that amount, though broad subsidies were being extended across all sectors through existing government systems. “It’s not just tourism, we’re giving this assistance to all the people. But specifically, we’re not doing anything specific to compensate the industry for $500 million,” he said.
The $500 million figure came from a joint statement issued on 10 May by the National Hotels and Guesthouses Association of Maldives and the Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators. The two bodies said the sector had suffered losses of that scale since March, driven by a sharp decline in arrivals linked to disruptions at Middle Eastern transit hubs following the US-Iran conflict. They called on the government and financial institutions to provide interest-free moratorium loans, restructure existing debt, defer tax payments and waive quota fees before the situation worsened further. Small and medium enterprises, guesthouses and travel agents, they said, had reached the point where some were facing closure.
On the arrivals data, Ameen was more forthcoming. Tourist arrivals in March fell 22 percent compared to March 2025. April was 26 percent lower than the previous year. May, however, has shown a meaningful shift. Arrivals in May are running at 8.9 percent below the same month last year, a significant improvement on the previous two months and representing roughly a 17 percent recovery in the trend.
“So what I’m saying is that the number that impacted us has now gone up by about 17 percent thanks to everyone’s efforts,” he said. He described the turnaround as a significant achievement given the scale of the global disruption, crediting collaboration between government ministries, agencies and industry stakeholders.
Arrivals remain 6.8 percent below last year’s figures overall, and the minister acknowledged the gap. He said work with government and industry partners was expected to close it further by year end.
Ameen also highlighted the launch of direct flights between Male’ and Melbourne as a contributing factor, noting that the Maldivian wide-body aircraft that arrived from Melbourne on Tuesday was 92 percent full.
