Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation, (MMPRC/Visit Maldives) has kicked off a month-long marketing campaign with Italy’s Sporting Vacanze. The campaign will be held from January to February 2022.

One of the top 10 tour operators in Italy, Sporting Vacanze is a member of ASTOI, the Italian Association for Tour Operators. Over the past 20 years, Sporting Vacanze played an important role in the Maldives’ endeavor to become one of the top destinations for Italian travelers, with over 8000 pax sold each year. In 2020, they created one of the first travel communities on social media with more than 1000 travel agencies.

The campaign will see dedicated web marketing, social media advertising of Maldives posted on popular websites and social media accounts of corrieredellosport.it and tuttosport.it and Italo magazine. This campaign aims to create greater engagement and affinity with the Maldives among Italians. The campaign further aims to re-establish the Maldives as a close-to-heart destination using various platforms to promote the different segments of tourism in the Maldives including honeymoon/romantic holidays, wellness, luxury, diving and water sports. The campaign will help to market the Maldives as a safe haven, promote the strict measures taken at our resorts, hotels, guesthouses and liveaboards, and inform travel trade and travelers of different experiences available in the Maldives.

Despite several months of lockdown and border closure during 2020, Italy ranked as the 4th top source market to Maldives with 46,690 arrivals, while the country ranked as the 3rd top source market to Maldives in 2019 with 136,343 arrivals. Since the pandemic, the arrivals from the market declined drastically due to travel restrictions and health guidelines across the globe. On 29th September, the Italian Government established a travel corridor with tourist destinations including the Maldives, which allows Italians to travel to Maldives without the need to undergo quarantine upon returning to Italy. As of 1st December, Maldives has welcomed over 1,320,124 with over 27 thousand tourists visiting the Maldives from Italy.

Our target is to achieve pre-pandemic arrivals from the Italian market by holding promotional and marketing activities and position Maldives as the top destination of choice for Italian travelers as borders are now reopening for leisure travel.