Travel Trade Maldives (TTM), the first ever international travel trade show of Maldives, is gearing up for one of its key events, the Hotelier Summit Maldives.

Bank of Maldives (BML) has signed up as the platinum partner of TTM, making the country’s largest bank the title sponsor of “BML Hotelier Summit Maldives 2017”, a special forum within TTM where leading hotel owners and operators will discuss ways to address the challenges faced by the industry.

As a major component of TTM that connects the travel trade community of the Maldives, the Hotelier Summit Maldives will be hosted on July 12 from 9am to 1pm at the main convention centre of Dharubaaruge in capital Male.

The summit is aimed to act as a platform for stakeholders of the industry to meet in one place to discuss the future of tourism in the Maldives. It offers a solution-oriented platform that facilitates face to face meetings, networking activities and information exchange amongst the most elite assemblage of hotel owners and general managers.

Panel discussions on various topics of interest are scheduled to take place at the summit in which more than 80 general managers from resorts and hotels across the Maldives are set to take part. Notable attendees include ministers, and representatives from Travel Weekly, Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), Expedia, TripAdvisor, IITM, AirAsia and American Express.

With the Maldives government on course to achieving its electoral pledge of developing at least 50 new resorts in its first five-year term, global tourism is also seeing an ever increasing growth. A major focus of the Hotelier Summit Maldives is to address such matters and discuss ways in which demand would meet the ever growing supply planned for the tourism industry of the country while looking at the future.

Set to be held at Dharubaaruge from July 12-13, TTM will connect Maldivian tourism industry stakeholders with a global network of travel agents. Over 100 professionals representing travel agents, tour operators, industry experts and travel media have confirmed their attendance, while more than 100 resorts and hotels have confirmed their participation as exhibitors.

In addition to the Hotelier Summit, TTM will host Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Academy for the first time in Maldives. TTM gala night, to be held at Adaaran Select Hudhuranfushi resort, will host Maldives Travel Awards: People’s Edition which recognises 10 outstanding individuals from the hospitality industry.

A tourism career fair will also be held as part of TTM, providing job seekers, students, employers, training institutions and government agencies an opportunity to network. The career fair will be exhibited by resorts, liveaboards, leading hotel chains and service providers in the tourism industry.

Maldives recorded 1.2 million tourist arrivals in 2016 with a total of receipts around USD 2.5 billion. With the rapid changes in global travel markets, Maldives continues to strengthen its foothold as one of the leading tourist destinations in the world. While tourism still remains the leading economic industry in the country by far, innovative new approaches in marketing are required to ensure the sector remains at the top.

TTM aims to facilitate the tourism industry of Maldives to reach the ultimate target of two million tourists with over USD 3.5 billion in receipts by the end of 2020.