So, you marketers in Maldives Tourism; let me ask what are you forecasting in 2010 for your business materialization on the books?

If you are regular readers of Travel and Tourism news you may see articles forecasting positive growth in Asia Pacific Region.

“In South Asia, Maldives (+11%), Nepal (+11%) and Sri Lanka (+7%) reported robust growth in visitor numbers in October (2009) but India’s tourist numbers were down by -1%. As a result, the overall growth for the sub-region was a modest +2%, PATA said”.

Now, let’s not get overexcited and carried away but ask ourselves a question. Will this trend keep on continuing just like that for the rest of 2010? I don’t think; any one of us will be able to say something on this at this minute. Although we don’t have a “systematic” National Tourism Statistics Office, I think all you marketers in the field should get together and set benchmarks and trends for the year ahead.

New supply will continue to come within the year while demand remains the same for the time being. Looking at the existing statistics we don’t see any new markets growing exceptionally, but we see some markets shrinking gradually. The source markets we depend on from Europe (72% of visitor arrivals) seem to show continuous growth in compatible destinations while we see snail growth for the Maldives from those markets.

Now the big fight for all those individuals in the hot seats would be how to get your share of the existing demand? Would you focus on having bumps on beds or would you focus more on what you could bank in the moth end? I leave the answer in your hands, for this would depend on your budget figures and how you have set strategies to reach those numbers.

Tip: On individual levels, dig your archives of 2006 and 2007 before heading to the battle fields. On the Destination level, keep looking further and use few High-definition Telescopes if required!