Reasons to Visit the Maldives

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Monica Byrne Wickey Maldives

“Who would have thought to find a place so perfectly placed between the ocean and the sky.” – Billabong model/surfer & singer/songwriter Catherine Clark

World Tourism Day today. And there is no better place for a tourist to go in the world than the Maldives. That is why the Maldives features so prominent on so many bucket lists. In fact, a recent UK survey showed it to the the number 1 bucket list destination – “Great British bucket list! Buying a holiday home, driving Route 66 and a trip to the Maldives top list of things to do before we die”

The reasons for this aspirational popularity were enumerated in a Yahoo piece “10 Reasons To Visit The Maldives At Least Once In Your Life”.

My own list of reasons is a bit more succinct…

  1. Other-worldly seascape of blue tapestry
  2. Iconic plot-of-sand-with-palm-tree islands
  3. Life aquatic intimacy (best snorkeling in the world and world class diving)
  4. World-class surfing
  5. Stylish beauty

The picture above of surfer Monyca Byrne Wickey seemed to encapsulate just about all of those points.

At its heart, it is a tropical beach holiday. If you are from the Atlantic, then it will share many qualities with a Caribbean holiday, and if you are from the Pacific, it will share many qualities with South Pacific island holiday.

But its landscape/seascape are truly unique. Located at that magic sweet spot just above sea-level as Catherine Clark so poetically describes. Not mostly beneath the water line (like the Great Barrier Reef and Red Sea), nor towering above it (like the South Pacific and most of the Caribbean). It’s the closest you can be to the ocean without actually being in it (unless you want to be).  As we’ve heard from friends and experts who travel the world, “[name your tropical paradise] is great…but it’s not the Maldives.”

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“Marketing and Differentiation: How do you choose?”

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Hotelier Maldives

I try to help.

Most of the material on Maldives Complete is aimed at helping prospective visitors to the Maldives decide on the best resort for them (my response to the question I get asked most frequently…”there is no *best* resort overall, just the ‘best’ one *for you*“). As I’ve discussed many times, I’ve leaned towards more of the underserved groups like families going to there, but over time I’ve covered just about all niches including the mainstays of honeymooners and now, especially after the Dive Site database addition, divers.

One group that I also help where I can are the resorts themselves. A number of resorts follow the “Things I Haven’t Seen Yet” series. I always have delightful, extended chats with the resort management and the Ministry of Tourism when I visit. After nearly 20 years of visiting and over 50 resorts visited, not to mention my countless hours of on-going research and input from the website fans, I have many thoughts and perspectives about the Maldivian experience.

A number of resorts will often pitch me that their resort is a “Best of the Maldives” candidate for some special feature only for me to deflate them by citing several resorts who offer the same thing. On the other hand, I always uncover unsung treats on their island that they didn’t even know was unique in the Maldives. My island tours are like mini treasure hunts for me seeking out these overlooked gems as well as missing (incomplete!) data and photos of the property.

Recently, I was invited to do a guest piece by one the leading publication for the industry, Maldives Hotelier – “Marketing and Differentiation: How do you choose?” It discusses a principle at the heart of good marketing, the destination of the the Maldives itself and any self-respecting resort – “distinction”. A big nod to Seth Godin “Purple Cow” thinking about being “remarkable” as well as other tips I have noted during my travels here and elsewhere. And all about finding both the gems on your property as well as *being* the best resort for maybe not everyone, but certainly for many.

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World Travel Market 2014

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WTM 2014 Katherine Anthony Ayada awards

While Maldives Complete is my virtual world outlet for experiencing a bit of paradise when sequestered in the damp and dank boroughs of Britain, but once a year I get to inject a bit of real-world Maldives into my life. That is the annual World Travel Market where the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation comes to town with its marquee stand.

I always visit to saw hello to a few MMPRC and resort friends. But this year brought the added bonus of a “meetup” with some of the TripAdvisor Maldives Forum digital comrades. Pictured above is the TA and Maldives veteran Katherine Anthony holding the two awards won by her resort Ayada – “Leading Resort in the Maldives” and “Leading Water Villa Resort in the Maldives” (big congrats “KatfromAyada” and Ayada).

Joining us were Christine Aldridge of No Shoes No News Travel and Amit Patel of Simply Maldives. We all went out for a post-show nosh-and-natter catching up on all things Maldivian. Going around the table for the resorts sharing our perspectives – between us we had visited over 130 resorts (with obviously a lot of overlap). We whipped round sharing our superlatives like which resorts surprised us the most (in a good way) – Gili Lankanfushi, Soneva Fushi, Bathala, KATH, Komandoo.

The big news of WTM was the Thumburi guest house island project. It looks like an inspired initiative to have your cake and eat it too for both guests and Maldives entrepreneurs. It provides an island and infrastructure to reduce the costs of development and required investment so smaller businesses can investi in Maldives tourism. It also provides scale, diversity and competition to provide high-quality, but value-priced properties for the middle market aspiring to enjoy Maldives paradise.

I got to connect with some new resorts – Embudhoo, Equator Village, Summer island, Sun Siyam Iru Fushi, Diamonds Athuruga and Thudufushi, Barefoot, Centara, and Ayada (obviously).

A little virtual sunshine in my week. Maybe not the palm trees and pina coladas, but I still got to bask in wonderful smiles and gregarious warmth endemic to the Maldives at least for a day.

This post has a new category tags to the blog for “WTM” as this is now the 4th instalment of Maldives presence here.

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7 Underwater Wonderful Activities in the Maldives

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Underwater bubbles

The 7th of the 7th for 7 Wonders. Everyone knows the “7 Wonders of the World” (well, like the Seven Dwarfs, they always forget the last one like “Doc” or “Mausoleum at Halicarnassus”). In the age of listicles, there seems to be a “7 Wonders…” of jut about every description. Of course, a while back there was the “Seven Natural Wonders of the World” scam.

For Maldives fans, the latest of interest has to be the “Seven Wonders of the Underwater World”…

  1. Belize’s Barrier Reef
  2. Deep Sea Vents, Ecuador
  3. Northern Red Sea, Africa
  4. The Great Barrier Reef
  5. Lake Baikal, Russia
  6. Galapagos Islands
  7. Palau Reefs

One might argue that Maldives is glaring by its omission. But I have always thought that the Maldives’ ultimate charm is not below the water nor above it. But right at the water’s edge. It occupies that magical balance not being mostly beneath (like the Great Barrier Reef and the Red Sea), nor being quite high above (like the Galapagos or much of the South Pacific). If you are looking for that wonder that is right on the edge of aquatic and atmospheric, the Maldives commands a list of only 1.

1. Get Engaged – Conrad Rangali Maldives.  Mastering neutral buoyancy to get down on one knee.

Conrad Rangali wedding proposal

2. Get Married – Centara Grand. Buddy breathing for life.

Centara Grand underwater wedding 2

3. Run the Country – In 2009, the President held an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the risks of global warming.

Underwater cabinet meeting

4. Build a Reef – A number of resorts (eg. Kandooma, Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, Four Seasons Kuda Hura, Kurumba) now offer Reefscaping which involves attaching small pieces of coral onto support frame which allows them to grow

Kandooma reefscaping 2

5.  View an Art Exhibit – Soneva Fushi. New meaning to “Watercolours”.

Soneva Fushi olly and suzy art 1

6. Shoot a Movie. LUX Maldives. Life Aquatic sequels galore.

LUX Maldives Underwater Festival

7. Celebrate the Holidays. Anantara Kihavah. Eau Christmas Tree, eau Christmas tree…

Anantara Kihavah underwater Christmas tree

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Maldives Island for Sale

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Islands of the World - Maldives

If you want to implement some of these novel ideas yourself, you can do so on your very own “Maldives” island. Not an island in the “Maldives”, but a tropical resort paradise. Just a bit more northwest off the coast of Dubai at the famous “The World” reclamation development project. The “Maldives” is officially for sale according to an Emirates 247 reports…

“The island of Maldives on The World, Dubai, is up for sale. A listing on dubizzle.com, a classified website, reveals the size of the island to be 294,617 square feet, while the selling price being Dh48 million. Twenty villas can be built on the island, the listing states. An oyster-shaped islet, part of the Asia Island, has once again been listed on the classified portal. The island is now priced at Dh110 million [~£18 million]. The approved design for the island boasts of a built-up area of 47,048 square metres and a total land area of 36,661 square metres, comprising villas and apartments and 42-room boutique hotel.”

Actually, with the azure Indian Ocean surrounding the tiny dollop of sunny sand, the properties here probably all resemble a Maldives resort more than just about anywhere (I wonder if the person buying “Great Britain” is going to put a faux-Tudor place up on it?). I personally would go for the in-water massage and underwater bedroom.

Dubai Maldives

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Maldives, The Best Of…

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What Each Country Leads the World In

All of these “Best OF the Maldives”, what about the country itself. What about “The Maldives, Best of”? Can such a tiny country stand out as #1 in the world in any category?

Republic Day in the Maldives today with many patriotic points of pride to celebrate. The second round of elections has proceeded peacefully according to reports. And the country can point to many areas which despite it’s small stature on the map, where it commands a big standing on a few statistics.

Recently, Dog House Diaries created a fun infographic highlighting two things that every country on the planet led the world in. Unfortunately, the Maldives were woefully omitted. So being the master of what “best” about the Maldives, I thought I best do some research a lay down some markers.

  • LOWEST LYING – Renowned as a climate change campaigner for years with the threat of rising ocean levels hitting the lowest lying parts of the world first. And according to Wikipedia, the Maldives is #1 on that list: “Maldives is the lowest country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of only 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in), with the average being only 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level, although in areas where construction exists, this has been increased to several metres. However, more than 80 per cent of the country’s land is composed of coral islands that rise less than one metre above sea level.”
  • SKINNIEST – The islands form a narrow chain 820 kilometers (510 miles) in length and 130 kilometers (81 miles).  Length to width ratio of 6.3.  But Chile, the ostensible skinny champion, averages 110 miles wide across 2,653 miles of length for a ratio of 24.1.  But, if you include Easter Island (and why not since Maldives includes islands!), then the width of Chile extends to 2,292 miles which changes the ratio to a mere 1.2.
  • RESORT DENSITY – And of course, the ubiquitous resorts. There is a resort for every 2400 population in the Maldives (137 resorts active or inactive) not counting hotels and guest houses for 317,000 population). By contrast, the USA has 46,295 hotels/accommodation (NAICS code 721110) for 313.9m population. Only a fraction of these would be “resorts” and still this only comes out to 1 per 6823 of population. Another resort intensive country, Bali, has 830 resorts, but their population is 4.3m making 1 resort for about every 5000 population.

I thought that there might be a case for the “Least Landed” with only 300 square kilometres spread over 900,000 square kilometres of country boundary in the ocean. But it turns out that Tuvalu (in Polynesia) has only 26 square kilometres across an nearly identical expanse of ocean. Similarly, Tuvalu’s 11,000 inhabitants, compared to about 317,000 in the Maldives, make them also the least densely populated (when ocean area is considered).

So my nomination for Dog House Diaries Maldives entry would be “Sea-level Resorts”

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World Travel Market 2013

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WTM 2013

The Maldives coming to London is better than nothing (though never as good as London coming to the Maldives). The movers and shakers in the Maldives resort community have taken up residence at the Excel centre this week as a part of the World Travel Market.

Today, I had the chance to catch up with friends and supporters from across the industry including the tourism ministry, many resorts, tour operators, agencies, and other afficionadoes (like Adrian Neville). I caught up with Mohammed Elaf of the MTPB (see above) who focuses on their social marketing. I got to put another face to a TripAdvisor Maldives Forum stalwart, “Kanthony” of Conrad Rangali. I got to get some research on some of the new resorts coming on line like Velaa, Atmosphere Kanifushi and “Loama Resort Maldives at Maamigili”. I uncovered some great new “Best of the Maldives” pieces (eg. ‘island fit for an ancient king’, snow room, bamboo bicycle, turtle sanctuary, fly fishing).

The only thing missing was blinding sunshine, flour-soft sand, and an aquatic tapestry surrounding it all.

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World Tourism Day

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Maldives tourism arrivals by country population

 

 

 

 

World Tourism Day today.

As the Maldives (and Kurumba in particular where the sessions are being convened) welcomes tourism officials from around the world to host the United Nations World Travel Organisations official celebration, it is an apropos time to take a look at the shifting concentrations of tourists from around the world. Much has been written about the rise of the Chinese visit numbers, but with over a billion in population, one would expect a fair number to be drawn to the Maldivian charms. But which country has the highest proportionate draw to the Maldives?

If you look at the most recent Maldives visitor numbers by country population, Switzerland is the big fan of the Maldives with 4.03 visitors per year per 1,000 of population. The closest rival in enthusiasm density is Austria coming in at less than half that number with 1.97 per 1,000 population. Perhaps not coincidentally, both of these countries are famous for their mountainous landscape. Maybe the population craves the low altitudes of the sea-level hugging islands.

As described in the earlier look at guest numbers, the shift in enthusiasm density tracks with the overall guest trends. Namely, the rise of the East (Singapore, Kuwait and Australia the biggest risers) and the decline of the West (UK, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Denmark and Czech are the biggest droppers).

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Where are the Maldives?

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google search terms

 

What is the most prominent thing people search for about the Maldives?

Google celebrates its sesquidecennial anniversary today (there’s a sesquipedalian for you…If you don’t know what it means, Google it). I’ve been doing some work to make Maldives Complete a bit easier for people to find using search engines like Google.  Part of that work has had been use Google’s ‘Keyword Tool’ to get a better understanding of what are people looking for when they are searching about ‘Maldives resorts’. The results were quite intriguing…

1. Resorts – Obviously, the “resorts” themselves.

2. Spas – A bit curious in that when we first started coming to the Maldives in the nineties, most resorts didn’t even have spas. Maybe a few staff therapists on contracts. Now they are one of the top allures. Also and indication of the gentrification of the Maldives as a luxury destination.

3. Where they are – This was the one that surprised me. It seems that the Maldives’ reputation proceeds itself. People have heard of the legendary Maldives so far and wide that many don’t even know where they are. Part of this bias is due to the high portion of USA traffic on the web. Not only are Americans notoriously bad at geography, but the Maldives are literally on the opposite side of the world quite removed from their traditional tropical destinations like the Caribbean and South Pacific.

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Best for Lottery Winners

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Maldives lottery winner

 

What would you do if you won the lottery?

A less than rhetorical question for a few very lucky souls this week. The Madison Avenue sponsored script is “Disneyland,” but the more unprompted survey says – “Maldives”. The article“If I won the lottery the first place I would go is…” that the first thing people do is go on a dream holiday, and the top dream holiday destination was the Maldives…

“If you won the lottery where would you go to on holiday? A leading travel agency asked Britons where they would most want to travel to if they won the jackpot and it revealed that the Maldives is top of the pile…The amount of winnings was any amount over half a million pounds and if money was no object Britons would go to the Maldives as their first holiday pit stop. The website Sunshine wanted to look into the holiday habits of Brits and in the survey of 1,672 adults they were all asked about how they would spend their winnings. 78% of people said that a holiday would be first on their list of expenditures and all were asked if they won over 500,000 where they would go on holiday first. According to the poll, the top 10 most desirable holiday destinations, if money were no object for Britons, were as follows:

  1. The Maldives – 19.0%
  2. Seychelles – 13.2%
  3. St Lucia – 10.6%

You’ve just won the lottery, what are you going to do? I’m going to the Maldives!

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