The Ministry of Tourism constantly reviews and updates the Travel Partners list, which now has 57.[File Image]

The Ministry of Tourism constantly reviews and updates the Travel Partners list, which now has 57.

Minister Faiyaz Koya says the most recent additions are the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong SAR.

Koya says that in terms of the forecast numbers for March and April, they have recorded almost 50% of the December arrivals.

He adds March is the low season in the tourism calendar.

“More tourism accommodation properties will also be open for full operation from March onwards. During the course of opening up, in late December and January, we were challenged with the new highly transmissible Omicron variant. We were not deterred and remained steady in our reopening plans.”

The Minister says the industry had some resource constraints and exhausted staff, but they have learnt how to best deal with the Omicron variant and tested all the COVID-safe protocols.