Tourism Breaking News
Visit Maldives has started a radio promotion with Al Khaleejiya for the Middle Eastern region. The purpose of this two-week campaign is to promote the destination and the unique experiences available in Maldives. In this regard, this campaign also aims to inform prospective travellers from the Middle East about the safety measures that are imposed in the Maldives and ensure them that Maldives is a safe haven.
With the reopening of major Middle Eastern borders, tourists are able to visit Maldives more frequently now. Thus, marketing efforts in the Middle Eastern market have increased in order to regain the market share, and increase tourist arrivals from the GCC and the KSA region. This is carried forward by utilizing campaigns such as the joint campaign with DNATA Travel and promotions with Emirates Woman, targeting potential segments. Under the Rediscover Maldives campaign, a series of webinars were also conducted for the travel trade of the Middle East market and other key markets.
The airlines operating from the Middle Eastern region include Emirate Airlines, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways. In addition to this, FlyDubai has started its operations to the Maldives on October 27, 2020. While tourist arrivals from the Middle East to the Maldives showed a 15.1% increase, with a record of 60,003 arrivals in 2019, current arrival trends since the reopening positions the UAE market 3rd in terms of arrival from the date of border opening.
Visit Maldives is currently conducting major marketing activities in key markets such as Global campaign with CNN, integrated webinar sessions in china, and the recent participation in World Travel Mart (WTM) Virtual 2020 in the UK. Furthermore, Visit Maldives has successfully concluded the Rediscover Maldives webinar series in September which was targeted to travel trade in source markets. In 2021, Visit Maldives aims to lead the national efforts in uniting all tourism stakeholders to try and achieve pre COVID-19 arrival numbers.
