Visit Maldives takes part in one of the leading travel and tourism events, WTM Virtual 2020. The virtual fair will take place from 9th to 11th November 2020 from 7 AM to 10 AM (UK time). This year WTM has been fully shifted to a virtual fair due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WTM virtual will be joined by leading travel and tourism experts focusing on restoring and developing business connections amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Live conference sessions and forums focusing on the obstacles the tourism industry is facing globally, and how to tackle them with trendy and innovative solutions to suit the situation is set to take place during the 3 day fair. The event organizers have also stated that a roadmap will be created for this purpose.
In addition, Visit Maldives will join one-to-one meetings and speed networking sessions which will help in building connections among businesses and individuals, as well as increase the brand visibility and awareness of Maldives. The island nation has a unique geographical formation of islands which helps in ensuring the health and safety of tourists, thus, Maldives will be promoted as a safe haven during the event.
Along with Visit Maldives, five industry partners will be participating in this virtual event. They are Villa Hotels & Resorts, Kaimoo Hotels & Resorts, Sun Siyam Resorts, Radisson Blu Resorts Maldives, and Robinson Club Maldives.
The Managing Director of Visit Maldives, Mr. Thoyyib Mohamed, states that this is a brilliant opportunity to promote Maldives as one of the safest tourist destinations in the world right now. “WTM Virtual 2020 is one of the leading global events for the travel and tourism industry. By participating in this event, we hope to assure travellers that Maldives is indeed a safe destination to travel to. Our aim is to increase our brand visibility and awareness to increase tourist arrivals during this time.”
Due to COVID-19, several marketing activities and strategies were shifted to online and digital mediums; the WTM London Virtual event is one of them. Visit Maldives has been taking part in such online events to promote Maldives tourism during the year, and many more are planned for the remainder of the year.
Further to this, Maldives has been a hotspot for several influencers and celebrities from all over the world since the reopening. Demi Rose, Katie Price and Natalie are among the ones who have travelled to the sunny side of life from the UK and they have featured the island nation and its tourist properties in a number of their social media posts. Visit Maldives anticipates that there will be more such travellers in the future.
Prior to the lockdown in March, a total of 32,818 visitors from the UK arrived in the Maldives this year whereas there has been an arrival of 3,737 tourists from the UK since the border reopened on 15th July. According to the most recent statistics, over 40,000 tourists have arrived since the reopening of the border.