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Maldives crisis triggers tourist cancellations
Author : Abhaya Srivastava
Published: February 8, 2012
ANXIOUS travellers have cancelled their Maldives holiday plans following the dramatic resignation of the nation's president, Mohamed Nasheed, in the wake of opposition-led street protests.
Nasheed stepped down after a police mutiny saw a large number of officers join forces with the protesters who had been demanding the president's resignation during three weeks of anti-government demonstrations.
"We had four to five honeymoon couples who made bookings for Maldives and were due to travel in the coming week to be there around Valentine's Day," Konica Kapoor, an executive of Flexi Tours travel agency in New Delhi, told AFP.
"But they called to cancel their trips" to the Maldives, a chain of nearly 1200 coral islands that lie just off the coast of the Indian subcontinent.
The cancellations came as Britain's government issued a warning against "all but essential travel to Male," citing an "uncertain" situation in the island capital.
The British advisory said there were no reports of unrest at the main Male International Airport or at the tourist resorts and other islands. The Australian government, however, has advised citizens to reconsider their travel plans to the capital.
The Maldives, which stretches across the equator, is a popular high-end holiday spot for wealthy honeymooners and celebrities where luxury rooms can cost up to $12,000 a day.
"All hotels in Maldives had been booked till February 14," said Shyam Lal Gaekwad of Travel Marg, a travel agency based in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.
"It's difficult to say what kind of impact the present crisis is going to have on travel to Maldives. The unrest is restricted to a few islands. We're keeping our fingers crossed," he said.
The Indian Ocean country last year drew more than 850,000 tourists to its secluded islands known for their turquoise blue lagoons and coral reefs teeming with tropical marine life.
The islands, long popular with Europeans as an idyllic holiday resort, now attract many visitors from Asia, especially India and China.
Tourism is Maldives' largest industry, accounting for a third of gross domestic product and more than 60 percent of foreign currency earnings.
The importance of tourism was underscored when it was granted $93 million in assistance from the International Monetary Fund in 2009 after its economy was hit by the global financial crisis that lowered the number of vacationers.
The recent political unrest had also seen anti-government demonstrations by Islamic fundamentalists.
The government of the Sunni Muslim nation was forced to briefly close all hotel spas and health centres in resort hotels in December after the hardline Islamist Adhaalath party claimed they were fronts for prostitution.
Four years ago, 12 foreign tourists, including a honeymooning British couple, were wounded in the island's first-ever bomb attack for which three Islamist militants were each sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Apart from the island capital Male, foreigners can only make short trips to other islands in an effort to curb the influence of outsiders on the nation's traditional Muslim lifestyle.
Travellers to the islands are usually whisked away on arrival at the airport by motorboat or plane to their resorts.
Maldivians are employed in the resorts, but cannot work as bartenders.
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