The pandemic hit global tourism more than any other industry. When lockdowns and restrictions began last March, tourist numbers fell off a cliff. They haven’t improved much since then. Most people stay on the ground with most airliners. But in the Maldives it was a different story.

Tourism here, especially at the top end of the market, has increased. Some luxury resorts, including our own, Soneva Fushi and Soneva Jani, have had higher revenue every month since October than in the same period of 2019. The concept of an island, a resort, the fact that travelers have to arrive with a negative PCR test and The government’s successful handling of the virus have created a sense of security and made the Maldives an attractive travel destination in uncertain times. Competitors such as Mauritius, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka will remain closed.

But the story is not entirely happy. The medium and inexpensive resorts as well as guest house tourism are badly affected. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many insurance companies stopped insuring outbound trips, and large tour operators that usually fill medium-sized resorts have stopped selling vacations. Although Emirates and Qatar flights arrive fully at Velana Airport and there has never been a better flight connection to places like Delhi and Mumbai, the arrival of charter flights with package vacationers has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels

To ensure a recreation that benefits everyone, the Maldives must demonstrate that it is a low risk destination in order for it to be added to the safe travel list in more countries. To do this, we need to have fewer than 50 new cases per 100,000 people per week over an extended period of time.

While the government has done a good job reducing the number of cases in Male, we now have a large number of cases in resorts, including the community spread. To have fewer than 50 cases per 100,000 people per week, we cannot have more than 270 new virus cases per week in the country. In the last few days of January, we’ve seen over 100 new cases a day, well above the threshold that a few months ago allowed the Maldives to convince countries like the UK, India and Dubai that we are a low risk destination . If cases continue to rise rather than fall, the number of countries we are on the safe list of will fall rather than rise.

Community spread across resorts

As of January 29, there were 931 active cases in Male ‘, 130 in the atolls, but 430 cases in the resorts. Fifteen resorts were monitored on January 28th. In six of them all movements were frozen. Departures to home countries can only be made with a negative PCR test.

One of the resorts currently under HPA surveillance uses the Maafaru laboratory, which until recently was operated by ADK. The resort in question has requested 700 COVID tests since the lab opened in July, while Soneva Fushi and Soneva Jani jointly requested 7,673 tests over the same period. The resort in question also had many more tourists than Soneva. In short, the resort has not done nearly enough testing and is now suffering from the consequence: a coronavirus outbreak.

To get COVID-free resorts, it is important to test anyone who arrives on the island more than once. At Soneva we test all of our hosts (staff) twice before allowing them to circulate with other hosts and guests, even if they are from a COVID-free Maldivian island. Foreign hosts are tested three times. Our guests are tested on arrival and asked to isolate themselves in their villas until we get a negative result. You will be retested on the 6th day of your stay.

Since the borders were reopened, 10-15 of our hosts and guests at each of our resorts have tested positive on arrival. Due to our thorough test regime, we recognized the positive cases early on and prevented the community from spreading. If we assume that in other resorts a similar proportion of guests came positively to the island of COVID; Then in many ways it is a miracle that we haven’t spread more community in resorts.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to contain COVID in the Maldives. We are fortunate that the country is made up of separate islands, which makes it easier to contain the virus. But we have to test, test, test. It is not enough to rely on the tourists’ negative PCR result when landing at the airport. People can still have the virus even if a single PCR test gives a negative result.

The recent ingestion of 100,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is good news and should significantly reduce the number of new cases in men. This brings the cases in the resorts even more to the fore.

The vaccine does not immediately end the need for testing

I recently spoke to virology experts around the world, including a senior virologist who oversees seven Greater London hospitals and an American virologist who is now part of President Biden’s COVID Task Force. I asked her if we needed to continue testing people who had received the vaccine. The answer was unanimous: we have to.

The effectiveness rate of the various vaccines is between 50 and 95 percent. Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna, Sinovac and Sputnik also did not test “asymptomatic transport”. In other words, they only tested whether the vaccinated would be protected from infection. They did not test whether a vaccinated person could still be an asymptomatic carrier of the virus and infect others.

The only company that made a vaccine that tested this was Oxford-AstraZeneca. Their results showed that “asymptomatic transport” was reduced by 60 percent. While transmission was reduced, those who took the AstraZeneca vaccine could still infect other people after vaccination. While the introduction of the vaccine in the Maldives will protect the local population from disease from COVID 19, we must continue testing tourists and resort workers alike until the pandemic is finally over.

Some solutions

My guess is that some resorts may not want to test all of their staff and guests because it is costly and they fear that it will make a resort vacation less attractive. Our experience at Soneva shows that testing, while costly, has not resulted in any loss of business. rather the opposite. We believe we have generated more business because our aggressive testing policy reassures customers that our resorts are safe.

I continue to love tests to fight the virus. That’s why the Soneva Foundation, a UK registered charity, sponsored the Maafaru Laboratory. I’m also thrilled that since we opened the lab six months ago, our ability to determine cost effectiveness has seen the cost of a test drop from $ 100 to $ 55 today. The lab offers the cheapest commercial tests in the country.

The government may need to get resorts to test more – at least to test all staff and guests before they can roam freely around the island. For example, the government could give every resort a star rating for COVID safety reasons – those who test a lot and take other precautions would get a higher star rating. This approach could be a strong incentive for resorts to do more testing, which would gradually eliminate the community spread in resorts.

The last few months have been hopeful. For many, tourism has rebounded, and some hotels like Soneva have posted record service fees for their hosts (USD 2,600 per Soneva host in December alone). Unfortunately, there are signs that the recovery is stalling.

While new demand and requests remain strong, there are also cancellations as countries like the UK are re-locked. If the current rate of new cases in the Maldives continues, we may be removed from the safe travel lists of major markets. Ironically, if more Maldives are vaccinated, it will not be in Male or the local islands where the COVID cases remain, but in the resorts. Unless resorts are more careful and consider the importance of testing, the recovery of Maldivian tourism could be short-lived.