Best of the Maldives: Bottled Water – Kuramathi

Kuramathi bottled water

If you prefer to imbibe rather than immerse in Maldivian aqueous refreshment, then Kuramathi has developed the tipple for you…

Kuramathi Water. This clean, potable water made on the island emanates from a Classic Crystal purification system, ensuring the highest levels of quality and standards. The finished product is a glass bottle containing fresh drinking water. The bottle comes in two sizes, 500ml and 1 litre, and is a complimentary amenity for guests staying on Full Board. The bottles are also replenished from the guest’s stock every day. Reusing glass bottles is a milestone for Kuramathi, making our carbon footprint smaller as it would save the usage of about 300,000 plastic bottles discarded every year. To provide our guests with a memoir of Kuramathi, the bottles will be sold at the bars for very reasonable prices. One other interesting aspect about this water is that they are bottled in two forms; as still and sparkling waters.”

Perfectly timed launch coinciding with the Maldives’ ‘Always Natural’ campaign.

Among the old-timer Maldives aficionados, there is a bit of nostalgia for the ‘no shoes, no news’ simplicity of old school Maldivian simple paradise. One of the details of that nearly by-gone era that my wife Lori and I miss are the battered ‘re-used’ soda bottles. With the ecological mantra of “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle”, the re-used bottles were actually more environmentally progressive than the current practice of recycling. They had a sea-glass charm covered with the patina of many quenched thirsts. They also had sturdy heft to them for durability, but also making drinking from the bottle like holding a sculpted glass mug.  But, Kuramathi now takes it a reuse a step further adding locally produced beverage.

Best of the Maldives: Pool Service – Kanuhura

Kanuhura pool

 

Kanuhura does seem to have a thing for making your plunges as pampered as possible. In addition to its ‘Bath Menu’ it also offers ‘Pool Service’ (if you prefer your soaking on a larger, more public scale). Their services include…

  • Sun glass polishing by the beach host
  • Complimentary sorbets and ice creams (we had mango, coconut and pistachio…yum!), all home made on the island
  • Wireless Internet
  • Face mist spray service
  • Music CD menu

Yes, ‘sun glass polishing’ and ‘face mist spray service’. The spa is right next door to the pool, though, and I think the one thing they could add to the already decadently extravagant service would be “Suncream Application – one of our spa therapists will apply sun cream rubbing it in thoroughly while applying a gentle massage.” Just sayin’.

Maybe as a encore, Kanuhura will introduce a ‘Snorkelling Concierge’ with stuff like mask defogging and getting sand out of our fins. In any case, if you like aqueous indolence, then Kanuhura is the place for you.

Best of the Maldives: Bath Menu – Kanuhura

Kanuhura bath

“Your bath is drawn, m’lady”

You don’t need a butler at Kanuhura to get decadently pampered including having your bath drawn for you. Not just any bath, but your choice from their signature ‘Villa Bath Menu’ which include choices of “Veyoge Absolute Flower Bath”, exotic “Kanuhura Flower Ritual” or “Enchanting Breeze Flower Experience”.

“Drawn by the villa host at the guest’s chosen time, illuminated by a scented candle or oil burner, the water strewn with petals and accompanied by Champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries as well as a kids bath ceremony with milkshakes, cookies and a bedtime story.”

I don’t think my kids would protest at bath time with that sort of luxurious enticement.

Best of the Maldives: Densest Population – Jumeirah Vittaveli

Current World Population

 

Yesterday the world surpassed 7 billion people. That is according to the U.N.'s Population Division’s country-by-country projections of demographic trends. An awe inspiring number with equally stirring implications for the planet as MSNBC’s piece ‘7 Big Problems for 7 Billion People’ highlights. Sort the ‘Seven I-Wonders of the World’.

The Maldives has long been on the forefront of global ecological awareness and activism. And it re-inforces this focus with its recently launched ‘Always Natural’ campaign.

Maldives Complete has also, in its own trivial way, paid heed to visitors’ concerns about ‘population’. With both room count and island size in its database, it was pretty simply to add its ‘Population Density’ field as well (thanks Mark). In fact, the Room Density is something you can select for in the ‘Resort Finder’.

The most densely packed resort comes in as the freshly minted Jumeirah Vittaveli (opening 15 December). Its 91 rooms on 14,000 square metres is a mere 154 square metres per room. The result is skewed heavily by the resort having a large number of water villas (which don’t occupy any land) and being a skinny island (more circular islands occupy more acreage with space in the interior where the resorts tend not to put villas).

If you want to find out your place in the throng of billions, check out BBC’s ‘What’s Your Number’ calculator.

Best of the Maldives: Skeleton – Meeru

Meeru blue whale skeleton

Happy Halloween!

If you want to get into the spooky spirit, a number of resorts are offering special parties and attractions tonight. For example, Kuramathi has its ‘Halloween Horror’ event which includes activities such as ‘Pumpkin Bowling (where the objective of the game is to knock over ghosts), ‘Monster Freeze’, ‘Scary-Tell-A-Tale’ and ‘Make Your Own Mummy’.

It’s also a great excuse to visit Moosa’s grave on Kandooma. But the resort with the most dramatic (and certainly ‘Always Natural’) Halloweeny feature all year round, is Meeru with its Blue Whale skeleton.

A number of resorts feature whale skulls (eg. Kuredu, Kandooma), but only Meeru has the whole skeleton. The Blue Whale is the largest known animal to ever have existed on the planet and the skeleton measures 18 metres in length. The skeleton came from a whale that had washed ashore years ago and the owners decided to keep the skeleton.

Maldives, Always Natural

Maldives Always Natural

Island Investments Always Natural

 

Maldives…Always Natural.

 

The big news out of the Maldives this week is their new promotional campaign ‘Maldives Always Natural’. The announcement of the new logo has gotten most of the press, but that is just one piece of a larger, more ambitious marketing positioning. The logo got lots of coverage especially as such branding changes always inspire a lot of cynicism for any organisation. Lots of self-proclaimed artistic pundits take issue with one detail or another and proclaim that they could have done better.

The Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation was at the forefront of the changes, but it merely served as an orchestrator for many Maldivian stakeholders whose interests were being represented. MMPRC started with a call for submissions for ideas and proposals from schools and the public. They enlisted worldwide professional expertise with a specialist company called QUO. Now the MMPRC have published the initial treatments which bring to life the slogan in a variety of contexts.

Its predecessor slogan – ‘Sunny side of life’ was cheesy, tired and pedestrian. It looked like it was promoting some down-market Spanish holiday camp. It was fit for purpose in the early years of catering to the European sun holiday market. But now, the ‘Maldives’ is a world-wide brand drawing visitors from all corners of the globe. And its aspirations extend beyond just tourism as it promotes other industries like fishing and takes a prominent place on the world stage for ecological issues.

Considering the huge scale of pressures and diversity of scrutiny that a government body is under, and the very broad brief, the Maldives are limited in how ‘out there’ and edgy they can get. I think the effort is very commendable and is a big step forward. What I like about the logo is the colours. One truly distinctive feature of the Maldives is the various shades of blue in the aquatic tapestry that blankets the islands. I’ve tried to incorporate that shades-of-blue colour palette in the design of Maldives Complete. The logo colouring really nails this superbly and subtly (contrary to the garish and dated style of the predecessor).

The pictures here show the various treatments and the full sized images can be found here.

 

Colours Always Natural

All Yours Always Natural

Opportunities Always Natural

Energy Always Natural

Rhythms Always Natural

Best of the Maldives: Beach Tennis – Palm Beach

Palm Beach beach tennis

 

While perhaps the most famous ‘beach’ sport (and the only one of Olympic standing), Beach Volleyball is not the only ‘beach’ game in town. In fact, there are so many, that the Maldives was just this month announced as host of the next 2013 South Asian Beach Games. Including some I have never even heard of.

One of those is ‘Beach Tennis’ which Palm Beach features. It is also known by its Italian name, Racketoni. Basically, it is a paddle like racket with a slightly heavier tennis ball. You will often see it on beaches around the world where people play without any net or court just hitting it to each other and trying to keep a volley going. But Palm Beach has a proper, dedicated court at Palm Beach as well as an instructor, Mohamed Adam (shown here in the far court).

Best of the Maldives: Beach Volleyball – W Retreat

W Retreat beach volleyball

If you like your beach time a bit more active, then probably the most popular beach activity is Beach Volleyball. Not just in the Maldives, where it is definitely the sport you will see most often set up at resorts by the waterside with often a keen staffer stirring up some play among the guests. But worldwide in this Olympic year. In my day job with Red Bee Piero, we are starting to prepare special functionality for covering the London 2012 Games and Beach Volleyball is right at the top of the list of events that major market broadcasters cover in detail.

A number of resorts have the nets and line markers laid out quite well. But only a few have the soft sand for those diving saves. W Retreat not only offers both of these, but a number of other uniques in its world-class standard Beach Volleyball court. First, it has padded net stands for further protection from ambitious play. Secondly, the W provides ‘antennae’ for out of bound marking on net (the photo doesn’t show them).

Spike!

Best of the Maldives: Bean Bags–Velassaru / Baros

Velssaru bean bags

If you don’t want to sit on a gigantic beach towel, then Velassaru has the biggest beach beanbags I have ever come across…”Fatboys”. Bean bags are becoming more an more popular in the Maldives as a cozy seating. We saw them at Kurumba and Kandooma. But ‘Fatboys’ are the Cadillac, or should I say ‘Hummers’ of the genre.

According to a Daily Mail feature, the Fat Boys are also at nearby sister Universal resort of Baros as well…

  • “With a flourish, Jihad threw open the door to our villa and our children-squeezed past us, ignoring the emperor-sized bed, the teak decor, flatscreen TV, iPod charger and the Moet et Chandon on ice, and instead headed straight for the dazzling beach beyond the veranda. ‘Mummy! Daddy!’ they cried, ‘they’ve got a fat boy here!’ Amanda and I glanced at each other in horror; were we now about to face an outraged and indignant parent? Fortunately, the ‘fat boy’ turned out to be a Fatboy, a giant waterproof cushion, a sort of amphibious beanbag equally at home on the beach or in the water, and from then on it became the most heavily used piece of kit on the island.”