The Role of Local Food in Maldives Tourism - Scholarly Commons ...

Over the last five years, Europe has been the leading tourist source market to the
Maldives, contributing an average of more than 76% of the total tourist arrivals. Trends
in source markets between 2002 and 2006 are illustrated in Figure 4.7.
Figure 4. 7 Contribution of source markets
Market Share
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Source: MTCA (2007b)
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Out of the leading source markets, Italy ranked first in 2006 with a share of 69.6% of
the European market. The UK was the second largest (19.8%), followed by Germany
(11.8%) then France (7.2%). Switzerland, Russia and Austria all had much smaller
shares (4.4%, 3.6% and 2.3% respectively). From Asia, Japan was the largest
contributor in 2006 with 6.6% of market share, followed by China (4.4%). The market
share of Africa was 0.7% for the same year, while the countries from the region of the
Americas contributed 1.8% and from Oceania only 1.3%.
The top ten markets for Maldives in 2006 are Italy (25%), United Kingdom (22%),
Germany (15%), France (9%), Japan (8%), China (5%), Switzerland (5%), Russia (5%),
Korea (3%) and Austria (3%) which is illustrated in Figure 4.8.
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Europe
Asia
Africa
Americas
Oceania