Online travel aggregator EaseMyTrip may have halted flight bookings to Maldives. The Indian Chamber of Commerce may have also issued an appeal to all Indian trade associations boycott the island nation.
MakeMyTrip may have observed a 3,400% increase in on-platform searches for Lakshadweep ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the islands. But Indian airlines flying to the Maldives are not looking yet to reduce flights to the island nation, which is a popular tourist destination for Indians.
Full-service carrier Vistara’s chief commercial officer Deepak Rajawat said on Monday that the airline has not cancelled any flight to Maldives so far and will monitor the demand.
“The situation is evolving right now. We will have to monitor in a week or so,” he said in response to queries. Similarly, sources in IndiGo said that the airline has not cancelled flights to the Maldives so far and has not seen a trend of flight cancellations to the Maldives by Indian tourists, even though bookings have fallen in the past 36 hours.
Similar was the response by an executive of Air India. According to Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) no new enquiries are coming for travel to the island nation, but cancellations are not happening because people have invested money on bookings related to travel.
IndiGo has 28 flights to the Maldives this week, while Vistara and SpiceJet have seven flights each and Air India has six flights to Maldives, according to data shared by aviation analytics company, Ciricum.
Indian carriers will operate a total of 48 flights to the Maldives this week while Maldivian carriers will operate another 10 flights between the two countries. Air India connects Male to Mumbai and Delhi, while Vistara flies from Mumbai and Delhi.
IndiGo operates to Male from Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, and Hyderabad. Maldivian flights operate to Bengaluru, Trivandrum and Kochi in India from Male. Maldives, which is a popular tourist destination for Indians, is facing backlash after a minister of the island nation made derogatory comments against PM Modi.
“In solidarity with our nation, @EaseMyTrip has suspended all Maldives flight bookings,” Prashant Pitti, CEO and co-founder of EaseMyTrip, said in a post on X.
Pitti said that every year 300,000 people visit Maldives from India. “We are focusing on promoting tourism in domestic destinations like Lakshadweep and have also launched five new packages to promote Lakshadweep,” he said.
On Monday, the Indian Chamber of Commerce also issued an appeal to boycott Maldives. Subhash Goyal, who heads ICC’s aviation and tourism committee, appealed to all Indian trade associations to stop promoting Maldives given the anti-India feelings expressed by ministers of Maldives.
“Please divert all such queries to Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands, which are even better than Maldives in many ways.. other destinations that can be promoted in the Indian Ocean region are Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Bali, Phuket etc,” he said. Goyal’s STC Travels has also stopped selling Maldives packages, tickets etc.
Tourism is the largest foreign exchange earner for the Maldives and the country is targeting 2 million arrivals for 2024. Indian tourists were the highest among visitors to the Maldives till December 2023, according to data from the country’s tourism ministry.
As reported, the Maldives government on Sunday suspended three of its ministers for their derogatory remarks against PM Modi.