How is ‘Boycott Maldives' faring?
As the 'Boycott Turkey' and 'Boycott Azerbaijan' chorus grows amidst the two countries supporting Pakistan and Pakistan's position on Kashmir, along with arms support from Turkey to Pakistan, a similar situation developed with Maldives in early 2024, when Mohamed Muizzu, the current president of Maldives and then presidential candidate appeared with 'India OUT' T-shirts.
The trend was strong, with a few online travel agencies announcing that they had stopped accepting bookings to Maldives, similar to the current stance by Cox & Kings and Ixigo to stop bookings to Turkey. Within weeks of this online outrage, the Prime Minister visited Lakshadweep, which became a new go-to place with investments coming in from multiple hospitality chains, along with additional flights being launched by airlines.
A year and more down the line, it turns out that 'Boycott Maldives' has had its effect with Indian nationals visiting Maldives dropping by a staggering 37% in 2024 over 2023. Only 1,30,805 Indians visited Maldives in 2024, compared to 2,09,193 Indians who visited in 2023, shows data released by the Ministry of Tourism, Maldives. In the first quarter of 2025, the traffic from India has further shrunk by 7.9% over the same period in 2024. This comes amidst multiple new hotels being launched in Maldives over the last few years and overall tourism growing by 20% in 2024 for the island country. India now drops to the sixth largest source market for Maldives, with China, Russia and the United Kingdom being the top three. Chinese tourists to Maldives increased by 40% to reach 2,63,340 tourists in 2024. While China was the top source market in 2019, the last full year pre-COVID, India was the second largest back then.
Data shared by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article, shows that the connectivity between India and Maldives saw a drop of 17.6% in departures in December 2024, compared to December 2023. This resulted in a 17% reduction in seats. With China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany the top five source markets for Maldives, there remains an opportunity for Indian carriers for transit traffic to the Indian Ocean island.
For carriers from India, this has had no impact as they have merely redeployed the capacity on other routes where there is more demand. Indian carriers have been reeling under the supply chain pressures and have not been able to induct as many planes as they would have wanted to, even after taking in a sizable number of aircraft last year.
The loss of Maldives has been a gain for Thailand and Malaysia primarily. Both countries started offering free visas on arrival for Indians, similar to Maldives and started attracting Indians in droves. The flights between India and Thailand went up by nearly 40% in both capacity and departures in December 2024 compared to the same month in 2023. Flights between Malaysia and India were up by 21% and included the launch of flights to Penang and Langkawi by India, the two islands in Malaysia known for tourism but offering distinctly different experiences.
The sheer size of the population, along with an ever-expanding middle class in India with the affordability to fly, is what is attractive for neighbouring countries to attract tourists from India. Most countries in ASEAN have traditionally been dependent on tourism from China for similar reasons, but were jolted due to China's continued closure of tourist activities, including restrictions on travel outside the country. This led to most countries turning to India to offer attractive packages and offers which could attract tourists from the most populous country.
With Maldives, there are already signs of thaw in the relationship between the two countries. The ties between India and Maldives go beyond tourism. The drop in tourists saw airlines cutting down on flights.
When it comes to Turkey, IndiGo has already made it clear that their commercial agreements are in line with the Bilateral Air Services Agreement, and there is no violation of any rules. Over five lakh passengers flew each way between India and Turkey in 2024 on non-stop flights, many of them connecting onwards to multiple destinations. Istanbul has always been at the crossroads and has always been an attraction for Indians. Will this change this time around? The airlines will eventually have to either discount the pricing or look for other options if the trend to Boycott Turkey or flying via Turkey continues to be strong.
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