Maldives row is leading to hurried travel plan changes
- Industry estimates put the number of hotel bookings cancelled at 8,000 over just two days. More could follow
Adverse comments against India’s prime minister by three ministers of Maldives appear to have set off a chain reaction of holiday cancellations to the island nation.
Arshdeep Anand, executive committee member of Outbound Tour Operators Association of India, said some travel companies have calculated that between 6 and 7 January, the industry might have seen up to 8,000 cancellations for hotel bookings in the Maldives by small groups from India.
Anand, who is also CEO of HMA Spectrum Handcrafted Holidays, a Delhi-based outbound travel agency, added that her own company has experienced this blowback. A small group of 10 couples, which was spending about ₹30 lakh on a short getaway to Maldives, has cancelled the trip and opted for an alternative destination. “This downward trend for Maldives could spiral further,” said Anand, adding that it could also boost tourism to Lakshadweep.
While there is no number available for flight cancellations, an analysis by Mint shows that the average prices of flight tickets for January between Delhi or Mumbai and Male—barring a few days—have crashed. Compared to the usual, average return ticket fare of ₹24,000, flights on IndiGo are now available for as low as ₹18,500. Vistara is offering fares at about ₹31,000 for a return ticket from the same cities.
Meanwhile, a statement by the Indian Chamber of Commerce exhorted its members and other tourism trade associations to ‘boycott Maldives’, and instead promote places like Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep, and even other southeast Asian countries.
The developments are symptomatic of how Indians have reacted to derogatory remarks made by Maldivian ministers against PM Narendra Modi, after his visit to the Lakshadweep islands on 2-3 January garnered significant attention on social media.
Maldives’ deputy minister of Youth Empowerment, Mariyam Shiuna, posted remarks calling the PM names like ‘clown’ and ‘puppet of Israel’ on social media platform X, followed by more unflattering posts from two other deputy ministers of the same department, Malsha Shareef and Mahzoom Majid (the tweets have since been deleted).
Following this, a ‘BoycottMaldives’ hashtag began to trend in India on X.
This led to online travel agency EaseMyTrip’s co-founder on Sunday also supporting “the nation” and suspending all flights to the Maldives. “We’ve suspended Maldives flight bookings in support of the government, impacting 2.4 lakh annual bookings made through our platform,” Prashant Pitti, Co-Founder, EaseMyTrip said in response to queries from Mint, adding that bookings had surged by about 40% last year.
“However, we have Introduced Lakshadweep as our premier destination, on par with international favourites, and wish to enter into an alliance with Lakshadweep Tourism to promote the destination,” Pitti added. “We have introduced enticing packages crafted to elevate travel experience and discover the allure of Lakshadweep like never before.”
Luxury travel by high networth individuals (HNIs), though, is not seeing much impact, according to Radhika Khanijo, chief executive of Delhi-based luxury travel firm Welgrow Travels. She said that for now there are no cancellations, and they will have to wait about a week to see how the situation pans out.
On average, she said, HNI travellers to the Maldives spend 4–5 nights and go at least once or twice a year. The spends range from $2,500–5,000 (about ₹2.07-4.14 lakh) a night.
The head of a leading travel agency based out of Mumbai, on condition of anonymity, also said that so far, no cancellations had happened on its system, and it is yet to see any growth in traffic to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands or Lakshadweep.
The Maldivian government has distanced itself from the ministers’ posts, and suspended all three.
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First Published:9 Jan 2024, 09:27 AM IST
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