Tourism Minister Dr. Abdullah Mausoom has revealed that authorities would begin COVID-19 vaccination for the tourism sector employees tomorrow.
He confirmed this update via Twitter today and thanked President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih for speeding up the vaccination of tourism frontline teams.
The Minister also noted that with this initiative, the Maldives will top the leader board of the World's Safest Destinations.
Maldives began the COVID vaccination drive earlier this week and had vaccinated more than 800 individuals by the second day of the program. Health officials have said that it would be prioritizing who would be given the vaccine first based on the dangers they face during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the vaccination plans revealed earlier, tourism sector employees fall under the 3rd category of vaccine recipients which include essential workers and international travelers.
The decision to begin vaccination for the tourism sector employees comes after the Maldives welcomes more than 92,000 tourists last month. Tourism Ministry statistics show that 92,103 guests arrived in the Maldives in January of this year and that this a 46 percent decrease in the arrivals compared to January 2020.
The statistics also showed that Russia dominated the tourist market with 20,973 arrivals from the country last month while India followed second with 19,135 arrivals in January.
