Comparing Saturation Across Small Islands

Jamsheed Hassan

20 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

Why Success Fails at Different Points

Introduction: Saturation Is Not a Single Number

Saturation is often discussed as if it were a fixed capacity — a maximum number of tourists, beds, or arrivals. In practice, saturation is context-specific, emerging from the interaction of infrastructure, governance, buffers, and timing.

Small islands do not fail at the same level of activity.
They fail when stress exceeds absorption capacity.

⸻

1. An Empirical Clue: Growth Without Stability

World Bank data shows that despite rising arrivals, economic growth moderated sharply in early 2025, while inflation and fiscal stress increased.

This indicates that:

activity thresholds were crossed,
but stabilizing capacity was not expanded in parallel.

Saturation here is not about tourist numbers.
It is about system coupling.

⸻

2. Why Islands Saturate at Different Points

Three factors explain divergence across small islands:

a. Buffer Thickness

Islands with fiscal, ecological, and social buffers tolerate shocks longer. Those without buffers diverge rapidly under stress.

b. Throughput Elasticity

Islands dependent on short stays and high turnover saturate earlier than those with longer durations and more predictable demand.

c. Governance Lag

When policy adjustment lags activity growth, saturation appears suddenly rather than gradually.

The World Bank’s emphasis on arrears accumulation, cash-based expenditure cuts, and delayed reforms illustrates how governance lag accelerates saturation.

⸻

3. Saturation Is Non-Linear

Saturation rarely announces itself. Systems appear functional until:

FX liquidity tightens,
arrears accumulate,
inflation rises unevenly,
and public services degrade selectively.

The Maldives’ current profile — rising arrivals alongside rising downside risks — fits this pattern.

⸻

Conclusion: Saturation Is a Timing Problem

Small islands do not destabilize because they grow.
They destabilize because growth outruns adaptation.

Understanding saturation requires comparing:

pace,
buffers,
and governance responsiveness — not marketing categories.

bstract image of a structured system held in balance without directional cues, representing governance based on limits rather than forecasts.

Planning Beyond 2045: Governing Systems, Not Forecasts

When prediction becomes the wrong tool Forecasting has long been the comfort layer of planning. If the future can be projected, it can be prepared for. If trends are known, policies can be timed. This logic works in systems that forgive delay. Island systems do not. In non-ergodic environments—where

Abstract image of a defined boundary creating protected space, representing limits that make durable growth possible.

What Maldives 2045 Must Protect Before It Can Grow

Growth without protection is not progress Growth is not the danger. Unprotected growth is. In island systems, what disappears first rarely shows up on balance sheets. It is margin. Refusal. Time. By the time loss becomes measurable, recovery options have already narrowed. Maldives 2045 cannot begin with targets alone. It

Abstract image suggesting continued forward motion without a braking mechanism, representing structural inaction driven by incentives.

The Political Economy of Inaction

Why warning signs rarely translate into restraint By the time patterns become clear, the obvious question is no longer what is happening. It is why nothing changes. The answer is uncomfortable, but it is not personal. Inaction in island systems is not driven by ignorance or denial. It is produced

narrowing corridor, representing a future where choices progressively close and reversal becomes impossible.

The 2035 Scenario: When Local Island Capacity Becomes Irreversible

How lock-in completes itself If 2025 represents early lock-in, 2035 is where it finishes. Not with collapse. With normalisation. By then, the system no longer debates direction. It operates inside one. The local-island capacity path Under current trajectories, several local islands move toward 5,000+ bed equivalents across dense clusters.