Venue of the upcoming Guesthouses Maldives Conference 2017 has been changed to Paradise Island Resort and Spa, organiser Maldives Getaways announced Wednesday.
The second edition of Guesthouses Maldives Conference was earlier scheduled to be held at the main convention centre of Dharubaaruge in capital Male on September 23.
In a statement, the local PR firm said the conference will now take place at the newly built state-of-the-art, multi-purpose conference hall at Paradise.
The brand new Dhinasha convention centre at Paradise, which hosted its first event on Wednesday, boasts a main conference hall, a banquet hall, a VIP room and six break-away rooms for private meetings. The conference hall has a capacity of 500 people, and has been equipped with the latest multimedia technologies.
Maldives Getaways has earlier announced the partners of this year’s conference. Leading local telecom operator Dhiraagu signed up as the title sponsor, with the event now officially called Dhiraagu Guesthouses Maldives Conference 2017.
The one-day conference will bring together representatives from 200 guesthouses across the Maldives and more than 50 local and international travel agents that are solely focused on the budget travel market. Representatives of leading online travel agents such as Expedia and Booking.com will also participate in the conference.
Maldives, known world over for its upmarket tourism industry, has resorts in the hundreds spread across the archipelago. The industry has in recent years expanded to introduce more affordable segments, including guesthouses and liveaboards. Some 330 guesthouses have started operations over the past five years as the number of travellers that choose to stay in guesthouses rise.
The annual Guesthouses Maldives Conference, endorsed by central bank Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), Association of Travel Agents (ATA) Maldives and Guesthouses Association of Maldives, is aimed at bringing together owners and key stakeholders from the guesthouses and travel industry to discuss and share ideas on the challenges as well as the opportunities in the industry. Through the invitation-only conference, the organisers target to find ways to bring in 500,000 tourists to guesthouses across the Maldives by the year 2020.
The first edition of the conference, held in Male in September 2016, was attended by over 160 guesthouse operators, local and international travel agents, tour operators, online travel agents (OTAs), airlines, government agencies and business leaders.
Photo: Avas Online