Waz
Administrator
Maldves gets 20% tourists from India, 20% from Russia and 18% from China. UK has 17% and remaining are 25%. Russia, China tourists are not ones who splurge like the westerners as their currency exchange rate is not high and their countries tend to have cheaper goods and services than what they get in Maldives. So, losing 20% revenues will be a massive loss. Moreover if Lakshadweep is developed Russian and some of the western tourists will also come there instead of Maldives as they can access many more tourist locations in India in addition to islands with the single Indian VISA.
Maldives has 4-5lakh population. It is not a single piece of land but a series of islands with no road connectivity. It does not have any manufacturing or agriculture. Even electricity generation is done on Diesel generators (extremely expensive). There is nothing Maldives can do about getting goods and medical services, No other country nearby has even remotely comparable prices. Cost of living will simply double or get even worse without supplies from India.
The remaining come from Germany and the US i.e. developed nations with spending power. How many Chinese tourists have you come across? I've come across a fair few and they do spend and have had a large middle class tourism sector for many years before India did.
You keep on mentioning Western tourists, they haven't heard of the place, and the Russians also have plenty of choice. Let's see when it happens.
Agreed and the same point about their lack of economic diversification has been raised, but with nations like China (I know they're not near by willing to pour in resources, combine that with increasing western tourism attention, they can better themselves. But yes it can be painful for them losing Indian tourism revenue, but not a wipeout.




