Tourism promotion facing difficulties due to limited budget

Tourism Ministry has said that it will be difficult to advertise Maldives tourism this year because of the small budget granted by the parliament to the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC).

Deputy Tourism Minister and Head of MMPRC Mohamed Maleeh Jamaal told Sun Online today that parliament had granted the corporation a budget of MVR 22 million in this year and that compared to other years, this is a very small amount. He said that the target for this year was a MVR 50 million and that the corporation was awarded a MVR 70 million last year. He said that a great deal of work has to be done this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of tourism in the Maldives and that the small budget will cause much difficulty in this regard.

“We have to do a lot of work this year because we are marking the 40th anniversary of Maldives tourism. Also, new beds are being introduced in the Maldives, new airports are being built and an airport will be made international this year, and they have to be adequately marketed,” said Maleeh.

Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb has said earlier that a minimum of $15 million has to be allocated to advertise tourism. The ministry also wrote to the Parliament requesting the amount.

Maleeh said that some of the activities planned for this year include advertising Maldives on large international media, but said that he does not think that this will be possible with the small budget. He also said that the country is scheduled to participate in a number of fairs this year and that they will face great losses due to the lack of budget.

“We have to bring more tourists to the country in order to improve the economy. We have to maintain occupancy. We have to bring quality tourism. We can only do this by going to the people who are likely to come and telling them about the beauty of Maldives,” said Maleeh.

He also said that even though their budget is small, they are prepared to do the necessary to advertise the country and that they are working from a number of ways to try to increase the budget.

Different government departments are writing to the Parliament complaining that the budget granted for this year is inadequate.

Finance Minister Abdulla Jihad has said that the MVR 15.3 billion budget might not be enough and that a supplementary budget might have to be introduced during the year.