The nominees for the Guesthouse Edition of the annual Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators (MATATO) Travel Awards have been announced.

Further, voting for this year’s Guesthouse Edition will begin on 15 September and will proceed for a period of 15 days.

Announced were 96 nominations in 14 different categories with over 65 guesthouse properties in the island nation being listed for this year’s awards.

Nominees feature properties across the nation, compiling a collection of guesthouses that illustrate the diversity of the destination.

The Travel Awards 2019 will be featuring four winners selected from four different destinations for the Leading Guesthouse Award.

As a slight alteration from previous years, the Leading Guesthouse in Hulhumalé Award will be presented as a separate category in order to give significance to each region of the nation, where several guesthouse businesses are flourishing.

MATATO hosts the Guesthouse Edition before the annual Travel Awards each year. According to MATATO, these awards are conferred to leading Guesthouses across the nation in order to recognize the success of this sector, being one of the fastest growing sectors in the country.

The Guesthouse Edition of the awards was first introduced in 2017, where winners were selected with 60% SMS voting -through both Dhiraagu and Ooredoo- and 40% rating from Trip Advisor.