According to The Indian Express’s analysis of data from the tourism ministry in Maldives, Indian residents in 2023 accounted for 11.2 per cent of the total tourist arrivals—18.42 lakh—in the island nation, with Russia being a close second with a share of 11.1 per cent. The share of Indian travelers to the Maldives was just 6.1 per cent in 2018, but jumped over the next few years, partly due to changes in travel flows during and after the pandemic. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, Indian topped the list of source markets for the Maldives, with Indian tourists having a share of 11.3 per cent, 22.1 per cent, and 14.4 per cent, respectively.

Aviation consultancy CAPA India said that the Maldivies’s tourism industry would be “concerned” about the potential impact of this controversy. Although the Maldives has acted against the three ministers by suspending them, social media in India are replete with calls to boycott the tourism-dependent island nation as a holiday destination. The consultancy said that given the fast news cycle of social media, which quickly moves on “to the next controversy”, the actual impact of the boycott calls on actual travel may be “ephemeral”. “Unless of course the negative sentiment escalates to a level where Indian travellers genuinely feel unwelcome in the Maldives,” CAPA India added.

At least one major online travel booking portal–EaseMyTrip–has suspended sale of flight tickets to the Maldives. There are close to 60 flights per week between India and Maldives, of which, Indian carriers operate around 50 flights. IndiGo, Air India, Vistara, and Air India Express currently operate flights between India and Maldives. So far, no Indian carrier has indicated changes to its Maldives schedule due to the controversy.

According to CAPA India, this controversy underscores the probability of travel and tourism being drawn into geopolitical and economic affairs as India’s outbound travel grows further. “…the current situation does highlight how tourism can be drawn into geopolitical and economic affairs, especially in cases where a destination has significant dependence on key source markets. India will increasingly be one of those source markets,” the consultancy said. Outbound travel by Indians is growing at a rapid pace and is estimated to grow at the rate of 15 per cent per annum through the end of this decade, it said.

“In this case, the calls for a boycott in India have been led by public opinion. A similar popular groundswell was seen in China in relation to Thailand in 2018 (following the capsizing of a tourist vessel off the coast of Phuket in 2018) and in relation to Malaysia in 2014 (following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370),” CAPA India said.

India is the largest source market for a number of destinations, especially in its neighbourhood, including Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan, as well as Dubai. And it ranks in the top five for several others, such as Thailand and Singapore, CAPA India said, adding that more countries are likely to join their ranks in time as outbound travel by Indians grows further.