What Made Maldives a Preferred Tourist Destination in Asia During COVID-19? Lessons for the Indian Tourism Sector

The unprecedented nature of COVID-19 brought the tourism and hospitality sector to an abrupt halt worldwide. Due to travel restrictions and the closing of borders, the future of tourism faced uncertainty, and discourses on revival surfaced among academics and industry professionals. However, amid the pandemic, some countries took the initiative and decided to open their borders to tourists. One such country is the Maldives. It is an archipelago which is located in the Indian Ocean. This chapter aims to represent the success story of Maldives as a preferred destination post-pandemic, and how Indian tourism can obtain insights from the strategies adopted by the Maldives tourism board. The study conducts a comparative analysis of the post-pandemic tourism scenario in Maldives and India. The study reports that introducing new policies and an innovative branding strategy has led to the revival of Maldives tourism amid the pandemic. This includes strategies like using influencers for tourism marketing campaigns, launching the concept of split-stays, and COVID-related licensing systems in the hospitality sector to name a few. The study has practical implications for the Indian tourism and hospitality sector. Since the Indian tourism sector is crippling to attract inbound tourists, lessons from Maldives’ tourism strategies could be learned.