The Maldives government has assured that no additional fees will be charged on tourists who visit the archipelago when the island nation reopens its borders to tourists once again.
The Maldives closed its borders and shut down the tourism industry on March 27 as a precautionary measure against Covid-19. The Tourism Ministry prepared a draft guideline titled ‘Maldives Safe Tourism Guideline’ outlining proposed plans to re-open the country’s borders to tourists. The draft proposed to charge several fees from incoming tourists, and tourism experts and investors voiced concern on the proposition.
The Tourism Ministry issued a statement on Saturday announcing its plans to reopen the country’s borders for visitors in July 2020. The statement assured guests that they will not be charged any additional fees to enter the Maldives. But the country has been forced to look at creative ways to reopen swiftly and safely, which has some new protocols being announced for arriving tourists.
The first idea is a mandatory 2-week stay for any arriving tourist, which could get seriously expensive in a place like The Maldives, which is already one of the most expensive tourist destinations on the globe.
The second protocol would include submitting either a negative antigen test or a positive antibody test 1 week before their arrival, plus another test upon arrival at the cost of US$100. Tourists would be confined to their hotel suites while the test results come back, which could take anywhere from 3 hours to 12 hours.
The third plan is having tourists not only apply for their 2-week Visa ahead of time at a cost of US$100, plus show proof of their travel insurance for the entire trip.
Even with the new health and safety protocols in place to allow the return of tourism, it might be a while before levels are anywhere near the ‘norm’. The Maldives are most famous for being a honeymoon destination, and with many weddings being put on hold, the number newlywed couples looking to take their honeymoon are dramatically down.
The proposed rules seem to only favour wealthy travelers who can afford to stay for over 2-weeks in some of the most expensive hotel rooms on the planet, like the John Jacob Astor Suite at the St. Regis, which goes for around US$23,000 per night.
The Maldives are hoping their ideas to get travelers to return will be effective, as tourism directly accounts for 39.6% of their GDP, making it the most reliant nation on Earth to tourism.
The Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation and the Ministry of Tourism are organizing special events to re-open the Indian ocean island nation to tourists.
