Modi also shared pictures of the pristine white beaches, tagging one with a message that read: “For those who wish to embrace the adventurer in them, Lakshadweep has to be on your list.”

But the Maldivian ministers’ angry reaction to Modi’s post has in turn provoked fury among Indians, who, along with Russians, account for the largest number of visitors to the archipelago nation.

“This will definitely last until the ministers apologise.”

EaseMyTrip co-founder and executive director Prashant Pitti said his firm had suspended bookings to the Maldives “indefinitely” and that it would promote Lakshadweep over any foreign location, even though it might cause them to see a “temporary dip in international tourism”.

Delhi summoned Maldivian envoy Ibrahim Shaheeb a day after India’s mission in Malé “strongly raised and expressed concerns” with the Maldivian foreign ministry on Sunday, according to Reuters. China and India have reportedly been vying for influence over the island nation.

Rakesh Gupta, director of sales and marketing for India for Sun Siam Resorts Maldives, one of the island nation’s largest resort groups, said the impact had actually been moderate and was optimistic it would soon blow over.

“The government of the Maldives has taken stern action, and they have issued clarifications that the views expressed [by the ministers] were personal,” he said. But Gupta added that it would take at least a week to 10 days before the full impact on tourism in the Maldives could be known.

India’s second-largest business newspaper, Mint, quoted Arshdeep Anand, executive committee member of the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India, as saying that up to 8,000 cancellations for hotel bookings in the Maldives by small groups from India may have occurred from January 6-7.

“The relationship between the two nations was going through stress anyway with the coming into power of the new government in the Maldives,” said Harsh Pant, an international-relations professor at King’s College London.

“This episode has brought these tensions out in the open. You will certainly see some impact as there will be many in India who will take this episode seriously. But if the Maldives handles it pragmatically, there is no reason for it to last,” he said.

The Maldives have traditionally been an ally of India, given its physical proximity, and its strategic importance has remained one of Delhi’s foreign policy priorities.

But the nation has drifted towards Beijing after Abdulla Yameen, the half-brother of former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was elected as president in 2013.

Indian citizens have been flooding X with posts supporting the campaign to promote domestic tourism in places like Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep, over the Maldives in wake of the controversy.

“I have decided to #BoycottMaldives With such a beautiful place in Bharat [India], why go elsewhere !!,” wrote X user Vijay Gautam.

But some denounced the boycott call as self-destructive to Indians.

“The Hindu supremacists in India who are calling for the Indian tourists to boycott the Maldives – do they know that 33,000 Indians work in the Maldives’ tourist industry and send to India US$55 million in remittances? Indian tourists are only 11 per cent of the Maldives’ total tourist arrivals,” wrote professor Ashok Swain of Sweden’s Uppsala University on X, referring to supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Indian tourism industry executives said the entire episode should provoke introspection about the country’s tourism facilities rather than emotions.

01:56

India-Maldives row escalates after Prime Minister Modi called a ‘puppet of Israel’

India-Maldives row escalates after Prime Minister Modi called a ‘puppet of Israel’

“Lakshadweep is magnificent, but neither does it have hotels nor does it have [sufficient] flights. They will destroy it if there is unplanned growth,” said Rajeev Kohli, president of Euromic, a non-profit marketing association for destination management companies specialising in events. “You have to have the infrastructure.”

Others agreed that Lakshadweep’s facilities could not cope with a sudden influx of tourists.

“This [controversy] could prove to be a blessing in disguise. It will help us to improve the tourism infrastructure in Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” Goyal said.

Additional reporting by Reuters