MMPR Corporation Hosts Media Familiarization Tour For The Middle Eastern Market

Report: MMPRC

Maldives hosted a media familiarization tour targeting the Indian main stream media from 17th-21st September 2014. This familiarisation trip was co-ordinated jointly by the Maldives Marketing & PR Corporation (MMPRC), BizGate, the PR representative firm in Middle East and Emirates.

The main objective of this FAM trip is to help boost arrivals from the Middle Eastern Market, with the help of these media representatives. The journalists would get to experience the product on first hand in order to get positive editorial publicity about the destination and raise awareness on the destination tourism product. This FAM trip was hosted by Ayada Maldives, Atmosphere Kanifushi Resort and Hulhule Island Hotel.
During the fam trip, officials of MMPRC met with the journalists to present destination information, highlighting on the future developments of the Maldives tourism industry, specifically on the luxury market tourism development and shared the destination’s marketing strategy for Middle East.

A total number of 20,026 arrivals were recorded from the Middle East from January to July 2014, which is a percentage of growth of 20.7%. A total of 3,707 arrivals were recorded from United Arab Emirates (UAE). A total number of 6,751 arrivals were recorded from Saudi Arabia and 3,224 arrivals were recorded from Kuwait for the month of July 2014. With double digit growth from all major markets of the region, the Middle East market share stood at 2.9% at the end of July 2014.

Middle East is an important market to Maldives, with easy accessibility, high frequency of flights, and short distance. It is a promising market that has potential for further growth as they make last minute plans to travel and free visa serves as an added advantage. Hosting of the fam trip will help increase awareness of the destination through exclusives reports and articles reaching potential visitors of relevant target groups. This will in turn strengthen the positive image of the Maldives as a tourist destination and help boost arrivals from the Middle Eastern region.