Tag Archives: Industry

$200…Your own privately enjoyed sunset will cost you $200 (that’s per sunset).

If there is one thing that rivals snorkelling as the “main event” in the Maldives, it is the sunsets. Time for bats to start stirring overhead, servers to bring out the pin coladas, and gadget guys to grab their SLRs and get as many additions to their Flickr account as they can manage (while their female companions “enjoy” the sunset alone with their cosmopolitans…and the bats).

Sunset facing rooms are so much more in demand than any other side that most resorts have now instigated entirely different room categories for westward facing villas. In fact, sometimes the designation is as simple as “Sunrise Beach Villa” and “Sunset Beach Villa”.

So with Maldives Complete’s uniquely comprehensive database of resort room types, we can filter out such room types at resorts that have explicitly differentiated between “Sunrise” and “Sunset” variants. Comparing just how much of a price differential there is, we can estimate ‘how much does a sunset cost?’

In some cases a direct comparison is possible, but in others it is more complex. With the sunset side being more desirable, sometimes resorts have put more appealing larger rooms on that side. So at the very least, for an apples-to-apples comparison, I would need to do price-per square metre. Some resorts go so far as to significantly upgrade the sunset category so when I spotted that I removed them from the sample.

On average, a sunset costs about $200 per night. Now this total includes a range of resort from value 4-stars to some super-premium 5-star+ properties. I came up with 18 room comparisons in my sample. The specifics varies a fair amount…

• Most Expensive Sunset ($) – Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru,
• Most Expensive Sunset ($/sqm) – Four Seasons Kuda Huraa, $4.76.
• Most Expense Sunset (%) – Vilu Reef, +47%
• Least Expensive Sunset ($) – Ayada, -$71 (but smaller room). Vadoo is the cheapest “same size” room at a $28 premium.
• Least Expensive Sunset ($/sqm) – Jumeirah Vittaveli , -$0.38 (actually has a cheaper cost per square meter for their sunset room…the room costs more than the sunrise equivalent, but it is even bigger in size).
• Least Expensive Sunset (%) – Jumeirah Vittaveli , -4%.

[NOTE – Prices indicated are based on research within the past year and represent the approximate cost for a Bed & Breakfast rate in US Dollars in mid-February. Prices do vary considerably with special offers, availability, etc]

The Maldives isn’t the only place in the world where sunlight is valued. In fact, much of the Western world has contrived the system of “Day Light Savings” time (which takes place today in the UK and next week in the USA). Its name implies like it is some sort of very short-term solar layaway plan. Unfortunately, you just borrow one hour from the beginning of the day and have to pay it back later that same day.

The notion was devised to help the farmers maximise daylight that they worked the fields in the summer. Maldives resorts do the same thing. Basically trying to optimise the “main event” sunsets around mealtimes. “Resort time” is usually different to “Male time” (despite being on the same longitude) and some further random variations added on. So in the Maldives every day is “Day Light Savings” time. And maybe Maldives sunshine is a bit more precious so every second saved is a good thing. Still, it can be a bit confusing and even frustrating especially if you are island hoppers like us (and others it seems from the brilliant movie parody trailer below)…

“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.”

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.

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).