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Tourist arrivals to Maldives in the first three quarters registered a 10.1-percent growth year on, reaching a total of 901,004 guests by the end of September, latest statistics from the Tourism Ministry showed on Tuesday.
Visitors from Asia and Pacific countries accounted for 50 percent of all arrivals during the first nine months, the data showed.
However, the ministry noted in a statement that "the pace at which arrival from the region was increasing have slowed down since June."
"While the region enjoyed a robust growth of 22.3 percent at the end of first two quarters of 2014, growth rate slowed down to 17.3 percent by the end of the third quarter of 2014," said the statement.
"The region injected 53,454 tourists to the total arrivals to the country during the month of September, summing up the total arrivals from the region to 450,296 by the end of the period from January to September 2014."
"China (31.8 percent), India (3.5 percent), Japan (3.1 percent) and South Korea (2.7 percent) were the leading markets from Asia and the Pacific region, the ministry revealed, with Australia (1.6 percent) "emerging as a potential market from this region."
"The Chinese market, registered a negative growth (-1.7 percent) for the first time in September 2014 since becoming the number one market in 2010. However, the market ended up with a healthy 14.8 percent growth at the end of the period from January to September 2014 with a total of 286,838 tourists."
Tourist arrivals from Europe meanwhile increased 1.6 percent in the first three quarters compared to the same period in 2013, reaching 386,914 visitors.
The Maldives Monetary Authority in its quarterly economic bulletin observed that favorable growth in the tourism industry during the year suggested the arrival of a million tourists during one calendar year is likely to be achieved in 2014 as well.