Social media posts by Maldivian officials may cost the country thousands and thousands in tourism revenue, as calls by Indian travelers to boycott the island nation intensify.
“We’re seeing a 40% drop in bookings during the last two days,” Ankit Chaturvedi, vice chairman and global head of promoting on the India-based travel software company Rategain, said Tuesday.
“Most individuals book on weekends, and due to this fact the drop seems more significant because ideally [bookings] must have gone up,” he told CNBC Travel.
Travel bookings to the Maldives tumbled following a diplomatic row that erupted last week after a series of posts appeared on X, formerly often called Twitter, on India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s account.
The posts showed him snorkeling, sitting by the water and meeting people in Lakshadweep, which some viewed as a veiled try and siphon visitors away from the island nation.
Amid reports that 1000’s of Indian travelers have canceled trips to the Maldives, one outstanding Indian travel booking website, EaseMyTrip, announced it is suspending flight bookings from India to the Maldives.
Some travel agents in India say they’re canceling bookings to the Maldives, scrubbing their web sites of its photos, and recommending travelers go to the Indian archipelago of Lakshadweep, the Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands or Sri Lanka as an alternative, based on The India Express.
The dispute has thrust a worldwide highlight on the little-known Lakshadweep, which just like the Maldives, is a scenic chain of sandy atolls, coral reefs and crystalline water.
The Maldives, situated some 340 miles to the south, is the popular playground for India, nevertheless. In 2023, multiple in 10 arrivals were from India, making it the country’s largest source market, followed by Russia and China, based on Maldives tourism statistics.
But more British travelers — and nearly twice as many Italians — have visited the Maldives in the primary week of January, in comparison with those from India, which fell to fourth place by way of visitor arrivals.
Within the absence of Chinese international travelers, Indians emerged because the region’s travel powerhouse in 2023 and are set to be the fourth largest global travel spenders by 2030.
If calls to #BoycottMaldives proceed, thousands and thousands may very well be stake.
Exact losses to the Maldives are hard to estimate, said Chaturvedi, but “India drove $380 million value of tourism last 12 months to Maldives, which is important.”
The posts that kicked it off
Some blamed Modi’s posts for setting off the debacle regardless that they didn’t mention the Maldives, which has lost favor in India following the 2023 election of Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu.
Muizzu campaigned on an “India out” policy — in contrast to the Maldivian Democratic Party’s “India First” policy. He also broke with long-standing tradition by selecting China for his first official state visit this week, widely viewed as a snub to India.
India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Nevertheless, others say Maldives supporters, bristling at online comparisons to Lakshadweep, kicked off the row by writing negative comments about India’s ability to compete with its resorts and hospitality.
Maldivian Deputy Ministers Malsha Shareef, Mariyam Shiuna and Abdulla Mahzoom Majid lobbed various insults at Modi on X, calling him a “clown,” “terrorist” and “puppet of Israel,” based on Reuters.
Maldives’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Moosa Zameer sought to distance the country from the comments, writing on X that the remarks “are unacceptable and don’t reflect the official position of the Government of the #Maldives.”
The three officials were suspended for his or her social media posts over the weekend, based on the news agency.
However the furor has only intensified since, underscoring the travel industry’s exposure to local geopolitical affairs, in addition to the on-going conflict within the Middle East.
An inadvertent push?
As as to whether Indian travelers are rescheduling their trips to Lakshadweep, it’s hard to say, said Chaturvedi.
“We cannot track this as there aren’t enough operations,” he said. Based on TripAdvisor, there are only 13 hotels within the archipelago.
Given the mercurial nature of social media outrage, Chaturvedi said he expects the boycott will “pass quickly.”
But a national rallying cry to travel domestically can have much greater endurance, he said. Trending hashtags, like #ExploreIndianIslands, are being pushed online from on a regular basis travelers to Bollywood celebrities, like Akshay Kumar.
Chaturvedi said calls to travel inside India “will last more — it’s a giant agenda of the federal government.”
An agenda which likely received a much bigger push than those behind Modi’s serene photographs by the ocean ever imagined.
