Tourism Industry In European Drive

The Maldives tourist industry has participated in several travel trade fairs in a drive to promote its resorts in European countries.

Over the past two weeks the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board organised stands at shows in the Austrian capital Vienna, the Dutch city of Utrecht and the city of Oslo in Norway.

The Reiseliv travel trade fair in Oslo is an important trade event in the Norway, targeting the travel trade and consumers in Scandinavia who want to make well informed decisions about their next long haul holiday trip.

Event organizers estimated that over 40,000 consumers and travel trade visited the fair.

Scandinavians are relatively wealthy and spend a lot of money on holidays to up-market destinations in the sun, to counteract the bleak cold winters they experience in northern Europe.

This is a difficult market to crack, however, because of the lack of direct air routes to the Maldives, and strong competition from more accessible destinations in the Mediterranean.

In conjunction with the Oslo event, Maldives Tourism Promotion Board held a news conference for media and travel trade to provide more information on the Maldives and in specific areas such as environmental initiatives and their impact on the Maldives economy and tourism trade.

In 2006 Maldives also welcomed 8,000 tourists from Netherlands. This is an increase of over 25 per cent compared to the year 2005, so a presence at the Vakantiebeurs travel fair in Utrecht was important for developing this growing source market.

Vakantiebeurs is one of the most important travel trade events in the Netherlands targeting tour operators and the general public. It is a popular annual event which last year attracted over 140,000 visitors. This year 19 representatives from ten private companies represented the Maldives tourism in Utrecht.

Austria is also considered to be a rapidly growing market for Maldives tourism, with a large number of citizens with high disposable income and easy accessibility to the Maldives. In 2006 Maldives attracted over 14,000 tourists from Austria, an increase of over 50 per cent compared to the previous year.

A significant number of people visited the Maldives stand at the Ferien Messe Fair in Vienna to gather more information on holiday opportunities in Maldives resorts.