Maldives drops pre-travel test for vaccinated travellers

The winter sun favourite hopes to return to 80 per cent of its usual tourist numbers this year

No more travel tests for vaccinated visitors to the Maldives (Getty Images)

The Maldives has relaxed its travel entry requirements, with vaccinated visitors no longer required to pay for a pre-travel test.

The country’s Ministry of Tourism confirmed the change on Friday, tweeting: “Tourists visiting Maldives are no longer required to present a Covid-19 PCR negative result upon arrival if the prescribed doses of vaccine are completed 14 days prior to date of arrival.”

The rules came into effect on 5 March.

You only need two doses to be considered fully jabbed, but your vaccine must be approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), with the second dose having been given at least 14 days before travel.

Additionally, vaccinated visitors who stay on the inhabited islands no longer need to take a Covid test before departure.

Those who have not had two jabs of an approved vaccine, including children aged one and over, still need to provide a negative PCR test result upon arrival, taken within 96 hours of departure to the Maldives.

All travellers must fill in the islands’ Traveller Health Declaration form within the 48 hours before their flight time.

Made up of around 1,200 small coral islands in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives initially reopened to tourism on 15 July 2020 after more than three months of closure, with no testing or quarantine requirement for tourists who had pre-booked a hotel registered with the tourism ministry.

It then added and removed various testing and quarantine requirements for visitors, before re-introducing a pre-travel PCR test for all travellers amid fears around the new Omicron variant.

Tourism generates a huge amount of income for the country, accounting for 28 per cent of its GDP, with 1.7m tourists visiting in 2019.

It is currently celebrating 50 years of tourism, with the first hotel having been opened there in 1972.

Thanks to relatively straightforward reopening policies - as well as a naturally spaced-out set up of individual accommodation on remote islands - it made a good recovery in 2021, with tourist numbers returning to around 70 per cent of the usual amount.

The tourist board is hopeful for a return to 80 per cent of typical tourist numbers during 2022.

The Maldives is just one of several countries to relax entry requirements this month; Jordan has also announced it is dropping all travel testing for tourists, regardless of vaccination status, while Israel has opened up with testing required either side of travel, and Greece has announced plans to scrap its passenger locator form.