The political shake-up in the Maldives has somewhat affected tourist arrival patterns for the last two months. Overall visitors to the destination dropped by -5.3 percent for March 2012. In 2011 March, 80,732 tourists arrived in the Maldives whereas same time in 2012 only 76,469 tourist arrivals were registered.
Since charter flights from China were temporarily cancelled due to the political unrest that has affected the number of visitors from that market which makes up a fifth of all tourist arrivals to the Maldives.
Chinese arrival last March dropped by -28.4 percent which is the main cause to the overall arrival drop for the destination.

Although not a huge market contributor YoY, Spain too has dropped by 11.1 percent when compared with same time last year. France has also gone slightly down with a negative growth of -8.9 percent for March 2012.

Other source markets such as UK and Italy seems to continue on the negative growth with UK dropping by -13 percent and Italy -37.6 percent. Although some ill-informed sources with personal agendas try to reason out this negative growth from UK (and Italy) by connecting to certain domestic issues in the Maldives the fact is that both these markets started slowing down since early 2011. The main reason for the slowdown of tourist arrivals from both these markets revolves around economic conditions in those countries and their dominance in the Maldives market as exclusive operators of individual resort beds. I am not going to dwell into details here as I will post separate blog on Maldives market conditions for the past 10 years.

Amongst traditional source markets Germany and Switzerland seem to be on the right track with positive growth. Germany registered a positive 14.9 percent while Switzerland recorded 20.8 percent for the month.

Russia continues to grow and registered 18 percent for the month and a 19.7 percent from Jan – March 2012, which contributes to 7.8 percent market share YoY. Emerging markets from Eastern Europe such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan are trying to get the fair share of the market by contributing a 40.2 percent and 68.5 percent growth rate for the month.

From Asia Pacific region Japan and South Korea seems to be on the right track with positive growth.
Despite a record low wedding season due to leap year calendar, Japan and Korea has shown strong sign with a growth of 9.3 percent and 43.1 percent respectively.

An overall arrival for the first three months of the year (Jan – March) shows a positive 3.3 percent growth which still suggests an encouraging outlook for the rest of the year.

The events that unfolded in the Maldives in early February 2012 has definitely taken its toll on the arrival numbers to the destination. Although not a significant drop, compared to same time last year overall arrivals in February dropped by -4.7 percent. In 2011 Feb 87,392 tourists arrived to Maldives while 2012 same time 83,252 tourist arrival were registered. As the highest individual geographic contributor to Maldives tourist arrivals, China took the political situation very hard hence some charter flight were temporarily suspended and travel warnings put in place. As a result the number of Chinese arrivals to Maldives in Feb 2012 dropped by -34.8 percent.

Traditional markets such as Germany and France has shown their camaraderie by showing positive growth for Feb. Germany maintains its steady growth by registering a 25 percent for Feb while France chipped-in to show a growth of 4.9 percent. Russia continues to grow and registered a 23. percent for Feb and a 20.6 percent from Jan – Feb 2012, which contributed to 7.1 percent market share YoY. Switzerland seems steady by showing a growth of 31.4 percent for Feb and a 26.3 percent from Jan –Feb 2012 while contributing a share of 4.4 percent YoY

UK continues down the hill with -6.8 percent negative growth for Feb while still contributing an 8.9 percent to the arrival YoY. Italy has not bounced back since 2010 and seems to take the same stride as UK with a negative growth of 22.5 percent for Feb

S. Korea appears to have bounced back from the 2009 crisis as arrival numbers are in the up, with a registered growth of 35.9 percent for Feb. Although Middle East has grown by 9.0 percent for the month, Saudi numbers has gown down to -44.5 percent for the month of February 2012.

Emerging markets such as India and Easter European countries continue to contribute a fair share as with Oceania and the Ameircas. With all these, the outlook for this year is still positive and there is every reason to believe we should be able to hit that magic number of 1 Million Tourists by end of this year.

The question to ask ourselves is: would this (changing of slogan) help to position the industry in a particular market or will it boost the flow of tourism business to the country? Maybe the easiest answer that comes to mind is: NO! So why change, now, again, so hastily? Haven’t we done enough already by confusing the travel world with the hoopla of changing the branding and the way the industry will be positioned?

I am not a big fan of the new slogan or the old slogan for that matter and I strongly do not believe that changing just a name-board is going to have an effect unless proper strategies are put in place to execute towards reaching a specific objective. Do we have an objective here when we talk about changing the slogan? What are we going to achieve by changing the slogan or the logo? The objective does not make sense when you say “it has been used for a long time and lots of people seem to understand it”. What is that “lots of people” are we talking about? If it is to make it an easy read for the old guard I guess the objective is clear.

The old or the new slogan was never promoted in a manner that will have a huge impact on the way people perceive Maldives. If you stop a tourist on the street and ask “what comes to your mind when you think of Maldives”? I don’t think the answer will be sunny side or naturally Maldives. I bet it will be a combination of many factors including the serenity, peace, crystal clear lagoons, white sandy beaches, sun and the people among many others. Perhaps these are some points to note if we are serious about proper branding.

Nation branding is a technical issue and these things should not be done just like that, to please someone or simply because we can. It shouldn’t be propaganda but a well thought through process to determine how people around the world perceive us as a country or as a tourist destination.

An ideal logo or slogan should be an illustrative representation of the nation, be a single idea and most importantly have patrons pride to carry.

Most factors that contribute to such a growth show positive signs so far. The final statistics of 2011 confirms tourist arrival reaching 931,333 for the year. This indicates a good 17 percent increase in tourist arrival compared with the year 2010.

The top drivers of Maldives tourist arrivals in 2011 are China with 21.3 percent, UK with 11.2 percent, Germany with 9.7 percent, Italy with 8.9 percent, Russia with 6.9 percent and France with 6.4 percent. China puts itself as the top individual geographic contributor by showing 21.3 percent which is a 6.3 percent jump from the 15 percent registered in the year 2010. Russia continues the race with a 30 percent increase which contributes 6.9 percent of total arrival share to the destination. Germany and France are on the up with 17.4 percent and 9 percent respectively. UK is down by 3.2 percent from 14.4 percent of 2010 to 11.2 percent in 2011 which still indicates the highest contributor for one geographic segment after taking the exceptional case of China. Italy contributed 8.9 percent but down by 2.4 percent from 11.3 percent of 2010 to 8.9 percent in 2011.

It’s not only the number of arrivals that increased last year but also the bed capacity by over two thousand beds and some additional flights to the destination.

This year we expect to see a similar trend as more resorts are shouting to open doors and news of extra flights heading this route. So there is every possible reason to believe this will be the year to reach that magic number. Fingers crossed!

Watch the video presentation here about the new brand: Naïade Resorts re-brand

The new slogan is ‘Maldives – Always Natural’, which is accompanied by a logo highlighting the country’s unique natural characteristics.

“The slogan and logo are designed to underscore the outstanding natural beauty of the Maldives, which tourists from all segments of the market consistently rate as one of their main reasons for visiting the country,” said a press release by officials.

“The slogan and logo’s environmental theme is also designed to support the Maldives’ fishing industry: sustainable, pole and line caught tuna is the country’s second biggest export, after tourism” explained the officials.

It is only a coincidence that you can find a very similar design concept and logo used by a not for profit organization advocating protection of sea and its species.

Officials from www.oceanconservancy.org are not avaialble for a comment.

And here is the old logo that have similarities with the destination logo of Spain and the tagline used by Thailand tourism office at some point.

No one from Spain or Thailand offices were interested to comment about this.

Vision
Be the most exclusive destination in South Asia
Be the top tourism earner in South Asia
Be an example of sustainable tourism development in small island nations

Mission
The [Maldives Tourism Promotion Board] will promote quality and sustainable growth in the tourism industry of the Maldives to foster a well utilized and financially healthy private sector industry – in this way enabling the industry to deliver long term economic, social and cultural benefits to the people of Maldives, whilst at the same time contributing to enhancements in Maldives’ unspoiled marine environment to the benefit of the people and visitors of the Maldives.

Objectives
• To strengthen and enhance the exclusive image of the destination in the source markets.
• To position the Maldives as a ‘premium’ destination worldwide.
• To achieve the growth targets set for the destination in the Marketing Plan for each year.
• To diversify the source markets as well as the market segments to the destination.
• To undertake market research to monitor the world economic conditions and travel trends in order to identify market opportunities.
• To monitor and support the private sector in their operations to maintain viable bed occupancy levels and to iron out seasonal fluctuations in visitor arrivals.

(Source: Ministry of Tourism)

More than seven years passed since these writings were published and used (potentially) as guidelines to promote the Maldives in the world tourism platform.  How did the priorities of tourism ministry and the destination market authorities have changed over the years? What are the present missions, objectives, goals or simple priority for this island nation and it’s ever growing tourism industry?

For sure there has been changes to some of the names used to address certain offices and officials in the business.

According to an email circular distributed recently and as featured on www.visitmaldives.com, a new company is taking over the functions of MTPB in marketing and promoting (and strategic planning I guess) of the Maldives tourism industry and other government offices:

“The Maldives Marketing & Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) has now fully absorbed the duties, responsibilities and function of the former “Maldives Promotion Tourism Board” (MTPB). The MMPRC is also working with the other government ministries for their external advertising and PR needs.

For communication and identification purposes please refer to the former MTPB as the Maldives Marketing & Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC). This will be harmonized across all our literature, marketing material and website etc”.

“MTPB was founded in 1998 and is responsible for promoting the tourism industry of the Maldives and carries out promotional activities across the globe” – the official description from archives of www.visitmaldives.com

I have made some calls around to see how to true this is and get a real picture of the demand. And the answer is yes, some resorts are seeing last minute cancellations, not significant and clearly from Japanese market as travelling is not their main focus right now.

There is no major panic in other markets accept some using the normal trade trick of going about asking discounts and last minute offers.

My suggestion this time will be: why not be proactive and announce the world we are still safe and ready for their holiday makers. We have seen and experienced what Japan has seen (on last Friday) and we join in their sorrow during this hard time.