Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih participated in an event of free-diving up to three meters for 30 seconds, which was aimed to promote tourism in the island nation.
Officials of Guinness declared the event as a new world record and presented the official certificate to President Solih. The earlier record was for the most people free-diving simultaneously at Verona in 2009 with 280 people.
Incidentally, Indians have contributed immensely to tourism growth in Maldives this year and a total of 104,242 tourists from India visited Maldives between January and August this year, a 100 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year. India has moved up from the fifth to second position in terms of tourist arrivals in the first half of 2019 and claims approximately 9.5 per cent of the total tourism market share in Maldives.
Indian Union minister of tourism Prahlad Singh Patel is expected to visit Maldives in November to further promote tourism ties and cooperation between India and the Maldives. Bilateral relations between the two neighbours have vastly improved since the change in regime last year when President Solih took over. The two countries signed a new visa agreement earlier this year to ease travel conditions and improve people-to-people contacts.
Tags: free-diving event, maldives
