Visit Maldives, on Monday, commenced a social and digital marketing campaign with Odigeo, one of the top Online Travel Agencies (OTA) in France.
According to Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC), the objective of the three month campaign, which will run from January 7 to March 7, is to increase destination awareness and boost arrivals to the destination in the low season.
Odigeo is a high end OTA in France with a worldwide audience of 1.6 million unique monthly visitors on Opodo website. Furthermore, it has 419,000 fans on Facebook and 64,000 followers on Instagram. With this partnership with Odigeo, MMPRC stated that a microsite has been created to promote the destination.
"With this feature, the destination products, photos, videos and maps will be visible to users of the Odigeo’s Opodo website. In addition to this, culture, gastronomy and unique adventures of Maldives will be featured on the microsite, along with flight details and information of the products of Maldives", MMPRC added.
Apart from the microsite, a dedicated email about the destination will be sent to Odigeo’s customers already in affinity with the destination, which will showcase Maldives as one of the most preferred and safest destinations to travel to during this period, due to the naturally distanced islands and unique geographical formation of the country.
Moreover, MMPRC noted that Maldives will be promoted through Odigeo’s Facebook posts to an extensive audience of followers and retarget the Opodo users.
Prior to this, MMPRC has conducted marketing activities such as a joint campaign with VeryChic, press trips, participation in ILTM World Tour and global media campaign in 2020.
The corporation confirmed that several activities are in the pipeline for the French market for the current year, focusing on joint promotions with tour operators and online travel agents, familiarisation trips, fairs and roadshows in key cities of France as well.
Based on the arrival figures of 2019, France is ranked in the seventh position of the highest performing markets to Maldives. After the reopening of the border on July 15, 2020, a total of 5,677 tourists arrived from the French market till December 2020.
"France remains a key focus market in the recovery of tourism in Maldives and the target is to achieve pre-pandemic growth levels", MMPRC noted.
The Maldivian government reopened its borders on July 15, following a period of international travel restrictions spanning nearly four months. Six months after the border reopening, the situation in travel has almost reverted back to what it was before the border closure.
At the moment, Maldives is recording a daily average of 3,000 to 5,000 tourist arrivals -- a notable figure considering the trenches that the industry fell into mid-2020.
Despite the entire industry screeching to a halt due to preventive measures taken to curb the spread of the virus, Maldives hit its target for 500,000 tourists in 2020, with an impressive recovery curve.
With renewed hope, the government expects to attract over 1.5 million tourists in 2021. Minister of Tourism Dr Abdulla Mausoom, on several occasions, stated that this year would be a "very successful" year for Maldivian tourism.
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