‘Visit, vaccinate and vacation’: Maldives to offer vaccinations to visitors

In an interview on CNBC International, Maldives Tourism Minister Abdulla Mausoom announced that thegovernment is planning to vaccinate tourists who visit the island.  

Mausoom stated that this initiative is intended to boost tourism to the Maldives – which is the primary source of income for the small island state in die Indian Ocean.       

VACCINATION VACATIONS TO BOOST MALDIVES TOURISM

The initiative is designed to bring back international visitors to the country after the global slump in tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to Mausoom, the Maldives will launch their 3V Programme later this year.   The initiative aims to attract tourists to “visit, vaccinate and vacation” in the Maldives.      

The country aims to welcome 1.5 million tourist arrivals in 2021.   According to the Times of India, the Maldives has already hosted almost 350 000 visitors this year. 

NO QUARANTINE REQUIRED

Successful efforts in curbing the local spread of COVID-19 resulted in the Maldives being able to open its borders to tourists once again.  The country already reopened to international visitors in July 2020.  

Low infection rates, combined with the ability to safely practise social distancing, enabled the Maldives to safely host visitors without the need for quarantine on arrival — which is the common entry requirement when travelling to most countries during pandemic times.   

‘3V’ tourism

Mausoom stated that about 90% of the frontline workers in his country’s tourism sector had already received their first dose of the vaccine. He said that the entire population will have to be vaccinated before the Maldives will launch its 3V visitor vaccination programme.

There is no clarity on exactly when the Maldives will begin to vaccinate foreign visitors at this stage. The minister confirmed that the initiative would not be launched until after the country’s own people had been vaccinated.

According to the Times of India, almost 51.5% of the local population has received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine so far, and 4.8% have been completely vaccinated.

“The main idea of tourism being open is to provide a reasonably safe tourism experience with minimum inconvenience. So once the country gets vaccinated, then we will move on to ‘3V’ tourism,” Mausoom said.