Despite Calls for Boycotts, Record Movements at VIA

Velana International Airport has reported new record air traffic movements for a single day with a total of 925 travelers. The previous record before this was 861 air traffic movements in a single day.

This new record comes at a time when there have been calls for a boycott of the Maldives following an incident where Maldivian deputy ministers made comments regarding India and their Indian Prime Minister. A large section of the Indian twitter community have called for a boycott of the Maldives, and for Indians to visit Lakshwadeep instead of Maldives.

Calls for boycotts even came from Bollywood actors such as Akshay Kumar, who has more than 46 million followers on Twitter. Despite this, the number of tourist arrivals at the start of 2024 has already begun in record breaking fashion.

The Government of Maldives has since released a statement which clarified that the views expressed by those deputy ministers was not reflective of the view of the Maldivian government, and those government officials have since served suspensions for their actions.

In the last week, the largest number of tourist arrivals per country has been from Russia, though a cruise liner from India also brought in a large number of arrivals.