Category Archives: Industry

The international recipe of guests is reformulating from a European continental dish to a distinctly Asian fusion flair of late Switzerland has now dropped out of the Maldives “Arrivals by Country” top 10 leading a trend of Alpine Western countries (Switzerland, Italy, France) being supplanted by low lying Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, Australia).

That’s according to the latest stats from the Ministry of Tourism that they presented in a nifty Pinterest (“P-interest” or “Pin-terest”?) post last week.

The Western sun seekers are being supplanted by the Eastern luxury seekers.

It is even more surprising it is that no resort has really nailed a sustained, quality blog considering how straightforward the opportunity really is. In addition to the blog fundamentals cited in my yesterdays “Maldives Resort Blog Roll” post, here are a few angles that almost write themselves for most resorts…

• Staff Profiles – A common feature on corporate blogs is to do profiles of various members of staff. Sometimes they are people doing particularly intriguing or esoteric jobs. Sometimes they are people with particularly unique backgrounds. Sometimes they are staff with special interests. We do them on our Red Bee Piero blog. The benefit to the resort and the guest is that such pieces really personalise the resort. Such individual stories make a bit of a human connection to this plot of sand with some villas and palm trees on it. Another benefit to the resort is that very often the staff are quite proud of the work they do and their story they tell.
• Snorkel Central – Snorkelling is the main event for the most guests to the Maldives. It is one of the first topics of conversation at the bar in the evening…”What did you see today?” Invite guests to share their house reef adventures and discoveries. Also, the majority of resorts now staff marine biologists. I find too many of these MBs focus on education. They write and speak about the ABCs of marine life. I think they should invest more effort and time in writing about “stuff they saw”.

What about Facebook? Many of the approaches I’ve listed above (eg. sharing snorkel pics) are what resort marketeers do on Facebook. They sometimes respond, “Blogs are passé, Facebook is where it is at.” Yes, blogs have been around for a while. The hype behind them hit a crescendo and has since tapered off (typical of many innovations). And Facebook is very of the moment. Though indications are that Facebook is hitting its own hype apex. Despite Facebook’s popularity and ease of use, it still has a number of major shortcomings especially vis-à-vis blogs…

• Offline Accessibility – Getting Facebook updates delivered to your offline Inbox (eg. Outlook) is a complicated set of menus and settings, while blogs provide simple (“Really Simple”) RSS Feed that deliver straight to your Inbox for offline reading (eg. on an airplane, in remote areas).
• Archivability – After certain dates, finding and accessing old posts and updates is a real chore (and I find they often disappear). On a blog, you can readily access them with direct links, Search boxes and dated Archive listings.
• Searchability – One struggles to find material on Facebook with Google, but Google readily finds most all blog material.
• Formatability – Facebook has very limited, almost primitive, formatting capability. Your own blog frees up your ability to format your posts in your preferred branding style or in a rich way that makes the post more engaging and/or appealing
• Linkability – Investing in a blog doesn’t necessarily forgo Facebook. You can have your cake and eat it too. Simple draft a rich format blog post…and then link to it with a brief comment on your Facebook page.

Happy Blonde Day!

Or you could pick your resort based on the prevailing hair colour of the staff…

When the press release came out a year ago about the ‘Blondes Only’ Olialia Island, everyone was looking for the ’01 April’ publication date. But the announcement was all delivered with a straight face even if they weren’t received with any.

Recently I stumbled upon the LinkedIn profile of Indre Kavaliauskaite who has the title of ‘Project manager at Olialia Blonde Island Maldives’. So it seems that someone is on the case. And judging by her profile picture (see below), her appointment is ‘on brand’ shall we say.

So Maldives Complete was faced with the question of whether to feature it on the site in the list of the resorts. Part of the ‘Complete’ in Maldives Complete is to feature every single resort. Including ones that are shut down for a period or are not yet opened. The thinking is that as people do research, they might have heard about a resort. Maybe it was from a friend who was there before it closed. Maybe it is not opened now, but often people plan trips to the Maldives a year in advance. By that time, the resort in question might just be opened. So info on it should be featured so people can include it on their radar.

It has its own Facebook page. If it is a hoax, then it is an extremely elaborate (and expensive one).

Many of my post are full of tips for prospective guests, but here are some tips for all of you resort staff and especially management based on my extensive sampling of the resorts…

• Always serve papaya with lime (and while you’re at it, teach them the difference between a ‘lime’ and a ‘lemon’. Several times I asked for a ‘lime’ and they brought me a ‘lemon’. As the old adage says, ‘If life gives you lemons, then if you had asked for limes, you must be in the Maldives.’)
• A mattress cover/pad is an easy/cheap way to make a standard bed feel more luxurious.
• Acoustic music (Maldivian traditional is good, soft jazz also, spa ambient even) in bar and lounges (unless you are going for the lively, upbeat, party vibe…but most Maldives resorts aren’t). For that matter, acoustic performers would often better suit the romantic mood of sipping a refreshing drink with your toes in the sand rather than putting on a mini cover concert.
• Job #1 for the staff is smiling (amazing how many resorts miss this fact. A resort that screws up everything, but does this tends to fare better than a resort that does everything right, but misses this).