Visit Maldives has started a digital campaign in the Middle East with Zomato, under the the ongoing “Rediscover Maldives…the sunny side of life” umbrella destination campaign.

The purpose of the two-week campaign is to capitalise on the platform’s large audience of 500,000 users, to build awareness about the Maldives through digital and social media promotions.

Under the campaign, Zomato will conduct an activation through an ‘Order & Win’ campaign where users with the highest basket value or frequency of orders will be qualified for a lucky draw to win a trip to the Maldives.

Launched in Delhi 12 years ago, Zomato is an Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery start-up that is extremely popular in UAE, and has grown to become one of the largest food aggregators in the world.

The platform is present in 24 countries and more than 10,000 cities globally, further enabling their vision of better food for people.

“In this regard, this campaign would generate more than 3.4 million impressions through the competition and it’s supporting promotional emails, push notifications and the brand tiles, ensuring large-scale visibility to the Maldives,” a statement issued by Visit Maldives read.

Following the ease-down measures and reopening of major markets around the globe, the Maldives has become an ideal location for traveling due to its geographically blessed and naturally isolated islands, making it one of the safest destinations to travel to.

In addition, the constant efforts made by the travel and tourism industry to reassure tourists, and the joint marketing efforts by Visit Maldives and other stakeholders have placed the Maldives as the World’s Leading Destination at the World Travel Awards 2020.

“The achievement of this award at such a crucial time would assist strongly in increasing the visitor numbers from the Middle East to the Maldives,” the statement read.

As the Middle Eastern markets continue to reopen, marketing efforts in the region have increased in order to regain the market share, and increase tourist arrivals from the GCC and the KSA region. This is carried forward by utilising efforts such as a joint campaign with DNATA Travel, a radio promotion with Al Khaleejiya, and influencer fam trips — all targeting potential segments.

These actions have firmly placed the UAE at the fourth biggest source market since the reopening of Maldives’ borders on July 15.

Visit Maldives continues to carry out several activities in key markets to promote the Maldives, in which over 412 different types of marketing activities have been carried out in 22 countries.

A total of 314 activities were carried out during the lockdown period as part of the crisis recovery plan. They include fairs, webinars, fam trips, online roadshows, outdoor campaigns, and digital media campaigns.

Some of the noteworthy campaigns include an online roadshow in China, a global advertising campaign with Skyscanner and a global advertising campaign with CNN.

Additionally, the initiation of the Maldives Border Miles loyalty programme and the Allied Inbound Travel Insurance policy assists the efforts to entice travellers to return to the sunny side of life.