A team of media professionals from leading magazines and publications from the Netherlands have departed the Maldives upon conclusion of a week-long familiarization trip.

The team visited the Maldives on an invitation by the Maldives Marketing and Public Relation Corporation, (MMPRC). The team spent a week in Maldives, from the 6th to the 13th of April, 2022. 

MMPRC highlights that the team consisted of popular writers, journalists and professionals from leading magazines and publications in the Netherlands. As such, the total reach of the team exceeds millions of readers according to MMPRC.

MMPRC disclosed that the team was hosted at Joali Being, Grand Park Kodhipparu Maldives and Crossroads Maldives for the duration of their trip. They stated that the team of writers from Netherlands experienced the world renowned Maldivian hospitality and tried activities and dishes unique to the properties based on the established theme, ‘Wellness’.

The team will publish articles about the destination and host resorts in their respective magazines and publications, states MMPRC. 

MMPRC states that this familiarization trip has provided Maldives with the perfect opportunity to promote the destination as a safe haven for travelers from the Netherlands. They also highlights that this trip has helped in promoting the unique experiences and individual tourism products of the Maldives.

While this is the first activity being held by MMPRC for the Netherlands to promote Maldives as a top of the mind destination for tourists from this market, MMPRC highlights that this is part of their marketing strategy for the Netherlands market, aiming to provide the latest information about the travel guidelines to potential travelers from the region.

Additionally, this strategy also aimed to market the unique geography of Maldives' scattered islands, making it one of the safest destinations in the world.

This familiarization trip, also falls under the new short term strategy of MMPRC devised to address the evolving geopolitical climate in the world following the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war. With Russia and CIS topping the arrivals figures in recent years, the strategy is aimed at mitigating the potential negative impact on arrival numbers from this region by re-strategizing marketing activities in selected markets to minimize the potential adverse effects on the Maldives tourism industry.

MMPRC forecasts that this trip would lead to an increase in arrival figures and bookings from the Netherlands to the Maldives.

Moreover, MMPRC plans to hold more marketing and advertising activities for the Netherlands market.

Maldives recorded 5,100 arrivals from the Netherlands in 2021. Prior to the pandemic, the Netherlands was a growing market, close in geographical proximity to most of the Maldives’ traditional top source markets in Western Europe. Market recovery since the pandemic has been on a steady incline, and subsequently, in the first three months of 2022, the Maldives has already seen 2,295 travelers visiting from the Netherlands.