Visit Maldives announced the launch of a digital campaign with Zomato for the Middle Eastern region on December 1.
Held in conjunction with the ongoing Rediscover Maldives initiative, the two-week campaign with Zomato is intended to utilise the platform’s audience of over 500,000 users to increase brand awareness and promote Maldives as a tourist destination.
Zomato will conduct an ‘Order and Win’ campaign in which users with the highest basket value or frequency of orders would be qualified for a lucky draw to win a trip to Maldives.
The campaign is expected to have an outreach of 3.4 million through the competition and supporting promotional emails as well as the push notifications and brand tiles.
Established in Delhi 12 years ago, Zomato is an Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery start-up with a high level of popularity in UAE. Present in 24 countries and more than 10,000 cities across the world, Zomato is now one of the largest food aggregators in the world.
Visit Maldives highlighted that the country's geographical distribution made it one of the safest destinations to travel to amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In combination with this factor, Visit Maldives stated that the prioritisation of safety measures by industry stakeholders and joint marketing efforts by several tourism sector partners contributed to Maldives' attainment of the World’s Leading Destination at the World Travel Awards 2020.
According to Visit Maldives, achievement of the award would also assist in boosting tourist arrivals from the Middle East.
The joint campaign with DNATA Travel, Radio promotion with Al Khaleejiya, and the Middle Eastern influencer FAM trip were among the several marketing activities specifically targeted for the Middle East region.
Overall, Visit Maldives has carried out over 412 different of marketing activities to promote Maldives across 22 global markets. A total of 314 activities were carried out as part of a crisis recovery plan which included online and offline fairs, webinars, FAM trips, online roadshows, outdoor campaigns and digital media campaigns.
The initiation of the Maldives Border Miles loyalty program and the Allied Inbound Travel Insurance policy also supported efforts to attract more tourists to Maldives.
Maldives reopened its borders to international passengers on July 15, after nearly four months since the state halted issuing on-arrival visas on March 27. Guesthouses were permitted to resume operations and kick start local tourism on October 15.
Although Maldives has noted a significant reduction in tourist arrivals compared to pre-COVID figures, the numbers have maintained a steady upward slope indicating a stable increase, but the country has a long way to go before pre-pandemic figures are achieved.
Prior to the border closure as a preventive measure amidst the ongoing pandemic, Maldives recorded an average of 4,200 visitors on the daily.
However, the Minister of Tourism earlier expressed hopes for the industry's recovery, estimating that 100,000 tourists would visit Maldives before the end of 2020. The tourism ministry expects a total of 500,000 arrivals for the year.