India boycott of Maldives may cost country millions in tourism dollars

Social media posts by Maldivian officials may cost the country millions in tourism revenue, as calls by Indian travelers to boycott the island nation intensify.  

“We are seeing a 40% drop in bookings over the last two days,” Ankit Chaturvedi, vice president and global head of marketing at the India-based travel software company Rategain, said Tuesday.

“Most people book on weekends, and therefore the drop seems more significant because ideally [bookings] should 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 known as 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 attempt to siphon visitors away from the island nation.

Amid reports that thousands of Indian travelers have canceled trips to the Maldives, one prominent Indian travel booking website, EaseMyTrip, announced it is suspending flight bookings from India to the Maldives.

Some travel agents in India say they are canceling bookings to the Maldives, scrubbing their websites of its photos, and recommending travelers go to the Indian archipelago of Lakshadweep, the Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands or Sri Lanka instead, according to The India Express.

The dispute has thrust a global spotlight on the little-known Lakshadweep, which like the Maldives, is a scenic chain of sandy atolls, coral reefs and crystalline water.

The Maldives, located some 340 miles to the south, is the preferred playground for India, however. In 2023, more than one in 10 arrivals were from India, making it the country’s largest source market, followed by Russia and China, according to Maldives tourism statistics.

But more British travelers — and nearly twice as many Italians — have visited the Maldives in the first week of January, compared to those from India, which fell to fourth place in…