Maldives Marketing and Public Relation Corporation together with partners from the Maldivian Tourism Industry are participating at the 24th Annual Arabian Travel Market. The event opened today and will go on till the 27th April 2017.
The Maldives delegation is led by the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Mr. Hussain Lirar accompanied by Acting Managing Director of MMRPC, Mr. Haris Mohamed. The Ambassador Designate of Maldives for United Arab Emirates, Dr. Hussain Niyaz will part of the official Maldives Delegation. A total of 59 companies and over 125 participants have travelled to Dubai to attend ATM 2017 fair to showcase their products.
Maldives…the Sunnyside of Life is showcased at a 200 square meter stand with a new design concept showing the natural beauty of the destination through colourful images. During the four day exhibition, special activities will be carried out at the Maldives stand to attract more visitors. This includes social media campaigns which aim to increase the online presence of the destination. Visitors can take pictures at the Maldives stand and upload to social media platforms with the hash tag #visitmaldives #ATMDubai to win instant gifts and at the same time experience the underwater beauty of the Maldives through VR Gears. The main focus for this year will be meeting with Airlines to identify joint marketing avenues which is mutual beneficial for the Airlines and for the Destination.
Arabian Travel Market held it first exhibition back in 1994. The fair has now grown over the years and is now recognized as the largest Travel and Trade Show in the Middle East region. Arabian Travel Market and ATM now attracts over 30,000 trade visitor to the show. Major industry stakeholders from the region and from all over world conduct business during the 4 days of exhibition.
Apart from usual business meetings, special events have been organized during ATM this year by the orgnisers which includes Speed Networking, Bloggers Speed Networking and ATM Roundtable for the participants to make the most of the event.
The Middle East region especially the United Arab Emirate and Saudi Arabia market holds much potential. In the 2016 a total of the 51,330 tourists from the region visited Maldives. This was a growth of 22.3 percent compared to arrivals in 2015. By February 2017 a total of 7,350 tourists from the region spent their holiday in Maldives which is a growth 3.9 percent compared to the same period of 2016.
Middle East is already the most well connected region to the Maldives. Daily flights from the major regional carriers direct to the destination. Hence, with the efforts in ATM the Middle East Market is expected to perform well in 2017.
