India-Maldives row: Anand Mahindra, CEO of Mahindra group, has commends the sudden surge of interest in Lakshadweep tourism amid the row rage between India and Maldives, calling it a “masterful move in a political Chess game”.
Anand Mahindra took to microblogging site X and shared that he had received an article by Bloomberg from his ‘Business partner in New York’. The Bloomberg article is titled– Why Indians Are Threatening to Boycott the Maldives.
Anand Mahindra informed in his tweet that his business partner from New York had commented “Amazing PR. Now everyone is interested in finding out more about Lakshadweep”.
Anand Mahindra also called for a cautioned tourism in the ‘fragile’ island group- Lakshadweep. “Now we will have to move swiftly to develop world class connectivity and high end resorts but at the same time overseeing access in such a manner as to preserve the fragile ecosystem of the islands”, Mahindra said in his post.
Surge in searches for Lakshadweep were reported but travel companies like MakeMyTrip after the India-Maldives row broke out over ‘derogatory’ remarks made by Maldivian ministers on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
MakeMyTrip (MMT) on Monday said that it has observed a 3400% hike in on-platform searches for Lakshadweep since the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Union Territory.
The surge in the searches related to Lakshadweep comes as many influential Indian celebrities joined the #ExploreIndianislands trend on the internet and requested people to prefer them for tourism purposes, rather than Maldives, which is radically turning anti-India with the new government in office.
The row also raged at a time when newly elected President of Maldives Mohamed Muizzu skipped an India visit, unlike his predecessors, and embarked on a 5-day visit to China, with whom India’s relations are sour, after a clash in Galwan valley.
President Mohamed Muizzu, belived pro-China, on Tuesday, urged China to “intensify” efforts to send more tourists to his country.
According to data released by the Maldives Tourism Ministry earlier, India has remained the largest tourist market for the country in 2023.
The highest number of visitors to the Maldives were from India, with 209,198 arrivals, followed by Russia in second place with 209,146 arrivals, and China in third place with 187,118 arrivals.
In 2022, India remained the top Maldives tourism market, with 240,000 arrivals. Russia followed closely in second place with 198,000 tourists, and Britain ranked third with over 177,000 arrivals.
