The Maldives held a major international conference on travel and tourism with over 150 participants in Bandos Island Resort on Saturday.
The “Maldives Travel Conference” is the first to be hosted by Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators (MATATO). The event was organised by Think Advertising.
The conference focused on four main topics with the importance of promoting the Maldives overseas, changes to the nation’s luxury travel industry, the ongoing transformation of the archipelago’s tourism sector, and the opportunities and challenges faced by the industry.
The discussion of each topic was carried out by a separate panel of four veterans, while other participants posed questions and shared and discussed their opinions on the issues.
A number of renowned international entities also took part in the conference to share their expertise and experience, including experts of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), CNN, TripAdvisor and TTG Asia.
In his opening speech, MATATO’s president Abdulla Giyaz declared that the Maldives has successfully reached the highest levels of the tourism sector over the past 40 years, thus becoming an exemplary tourism industry and destination for the world.
Noting the changes to the world’s tourism sector and tourists’ travel lifestyles, he stated the importance of studying these changes and discussing new findings with industry officials.
“That is the objective of this conference. To establish a platform in the Maldives for major international travel institutions and those that work at various levels of this industry to meet at one place, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of this sector on a broad level and exchange ideas,” he said.
Meanwhile, the MATATO Maldives Travel Awards, the largest travel and tourism award in the Maldives, will be held Sunday night at Olhuveli Beach & Spa Resort.
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