Travel cos say Maldives' tourism may not trip just yet
social media platforms over the weekend that they had cancelled plans to travel to the island nation.
Some companies have, however, seen a surge in queries for Lakshadweep, they said.
It comes in the wake of the row over derogatory remarks against India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X by three now-suspended junior Maldivian ministers after PM Modi’s posts promoting tourism in the Lakshadweep islands.
“We haven’t seen any immediate cancellations for our flights, but since it’s a developing situation, we will be observing closely and will be monitoring the situation after a week,” Deepak Rajawat, chief commercial officer of Vistara, said in response to a query from ET.
There are 58 weekly flights between India and the Maldives, operated by IndiGo, Vistara and Air India.
IndiGo has seen no immediate cancellations or impact on forward sales, said people with knowledge of the matter. However, the airline did not respond to ET’s queries in this regard.
Indigo has cancelled direct flights between Delhi and Male from January 17 as it has been forced to rejig its network due to the grounding of aircraft over issues with the Pratt & Whitney engines fitted in its 150 Airbus A320 aircraft.
Other than Delhi, the airline operates flights to Male from Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kochi and Hyderabad and isn’t cancelling flights on those routes.
Ixigo group CEO Alok Bajpai said the company has not seen a substantial dip in searches for travel to Maldives. “India was the top source market for the Maldives for tourism in 2023.
It will be interesting to see the preference of travellers for beach destinations in 2024. We have seen a surge of 2,900% in travel search queries for Lakshadweep in the last three to four days,” he
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