Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) on Thursday hosted a seminar on marketing guesthouses through social media.
The purpose of the seminar was to educate guesthouses on utilising social media to effectively market their offerings. Hands-on approaches to marketing guesthouses using social media were discussed which would aid guesthouses to make more informed decisions to formulate social media marketing campaigns.
Representatives of guesthouses from different islands took part in this seminar, which was conducted by Ismail Shaheer.
Shaheer is a PhD student at the Department of Tourism, University of Otago (New Zealand). He has worked at MMPRC (formerly known as Maldives Tourism Promotion Board – MTPB) for more than 12 years in destination promotion.
MMPRC plans to work closely with guesthouses in future.
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 500 guesthouses have started operations over the past five years as the number of travellers that choose to stay in guesthouses rise.
The new government has held a guesthouse symposium to identify and resolve challenges faced by the guesthouse industry.
Meanwhile, the government has announced plans to establish a financing company in order to provide financial and professional assistance to guesthouse businesses.