Vaccine tourism: The Maldives is planning to vaccinate visitors upon arrival

The Maldives is a tropical paradise that was successful in containing the COVID-19 spread in the country and still managing tourism. In a bid to boost tourism further, the Maldives is planning to start vaccinating tourists in the future. The announcement was made by the country's Minister of Tourism Abdulla Mausoom.

He said that the Maldives will implement a "3V Program", which is "visit, vaccinate, and vacation". This is being done to bring travellers back and help the nation reach its 1.5 million tourist arrivals goal in 2021. The minister said that till now, nearly 350000 tourists have visited the Maldives, and most of them have been from India.
He further added that almost 90 percent of tourism frontline workers have received their first dose in the country and once everyone gets vaccinated, the country will start with their vaccination program.

The Maldives aims to receive 1.5 million tourist arrivals this year. @Mausoom_Maus, Maldives Tourism Minister shares more about the country's "visit, vaccinate, vacation" initiative. @MoTmv pic.twitter.com/ZanAX0GsW2

— CNBC International (@CNBCi) April 14, 2021

"The main idea of tourism being open is to provide a reasonably safe tourism [experience] with minimum inconvenience. So once the country gets vaccinated, then we will move on to '3V' tourism," Mausoom said.

Though there’s no clarity on timeline to vaccinate visitors, the minister informed that it wouldn't start until after residents were inoculated. Till now, nearly 51.5 percent of residents have received at least one dose of a vaccine while 4.8 percent have been completely vaccinated.