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Spotlight on Maldives with 2024 Surfing Legends Series at Kandooma

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Together with partners, The Perfect Wave, Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives is delighted to announce the return of the Surfing Legends Series to the private island paradise. Attracting former World Champions Barton Lynch and Pam Burridge, and ex-pro Ace Buchan, who will share their stories, secrets and coaching tips in their exclusive surfing programmes.

Take advantage of the knowledge on offer and polish up your surfing skills with a series of special Surf schools to choose from during the surfing season in the Maldives.

“Many of the surfers who join us for the Surfing Legends Series have non-surfing friends and family, so we can ensure they are well looked after too. The island Kandooma has so much to offer in terms of great food, activities, relaxation, watersports and even a Spa,” said Ben Horvath, Business Development & Marketing Manager, The Perfect Wave.

“Surf, hang out and learn from some of the greatest surfers of all time. There’s no better place to do it than the home of Kandooma Right in the Maldives.”

Take your pick of your favourite Surfing Legend from a choice of three greats this season.

Aussie Barton Lynch whose exemplary career included 17 World Championship victories to become one of the most successful professional surfers of all time. He is now one of the most sought after coaches, an expert commentator and loves to surf more than anything. Barton will host a seven night camp 27 April to 4 May, 2024 starting from US$4,250 per person (based on twin share 1 surfer/1 non-surfer occupancy) staying in a Beach Villa. Barton will be hosting exclusive dhoni (Maldivian boat) trips to nearby waves including lefts such as Tucky Joes and fun rights like Quarters and Riptides. At Kandooma-fushi, your private island home for the week, your villa is positioned just steps away from the beach and a private world-class right hand point break wave called Kandooma Right.

The Barton Lynch Surf Week package includes:

  • Accommodation in a Beach Villa (twin share basis one surfer/one non-surfer)
  • Shared speedboat transfers airport-Resort-airport
  • Daily Buffet Breakfast at Kandooma Cafe
  • Surfer Pass
  • Dhoni transfers to nearby waves
  • Food & Beverage package, from US$65 per person per night (Optional extra)

1990 World Surfing Champion Pam Burridge and her husband the legendary surfboard shaper Mark Rabbidge will host a week of coaching at Kandooma. Offering tips in and out of the water over seven fun-filled days 9 – 16 June 2024, Pam and Mark’s programme is designed to help you improve your surfing in the user-friendly breaks on the doorstep to Kandooma Maldives, but do note that this one is not for absolute beginners or those learning to surf!

The Pam Burridge Surf Week packages start from US$2,962 per person (based on two surfers sharing a room) and includes:

  • Accommodation in a Beach Villa (twin share basis) (note other room types are available)
  • 6 days coaching from Pam and Mark
  • 7 day Surfer Pass
  • Shared speedboat transfers airport-Resort-airport
  • Daily Buffet Breakfast at Kandooma Cafe

Ace Buchan hails from the Australian Central Coast where he grew up surfing. Ace invites you to join him and his family for a week at Kandooma, surfing the perfect waves 31 May – 10 June, 2024. This week of surfing fun is tailored to surfing families but everyone is welcome, whether you are a passionate everyday surfer looking to experience the rippable walls of Kandooma Right, a pre-teen grom or gromette perhaps going for your first overseas surf trip with your family, or a Mum or Dad looking to improve your skills and share some waves with your kids. Ace Buchan Surf Week packages are yet to be released with options for Beach Villas, two-storey Beach Houses and the 2-bedroom Family Beach House and will include access to nearby breaks via a dedicated Dhoni (boat). Add to that surf lessons, photo and video packages, movie nights with all the family and opportunities to learn more about Maldivian culture.

Surfers can expect some great action in the water. Kandooma Right breaks just a stone’s throw away from the Resort. It’s a fast breaking right with two take-off spots and a great barrel. This wave is exclusively for Kandooma Resort Maldives guests with Surfer Passes. Nearby waves include: Tucky Joes / Boatyards which is a fickle, but freight-train of a left hander that provides a long, perfect but intense ride. Riptides is a right hander breaking for 150 metres on a reef in the middle of a channel. Sometimes there are very strong currents, evident in the naming of this beauty so watch the conditions! It’s a great wave for long- and short-boarders as well as low intermediate surfers. Quarters is a short boat trip away, this wave has two sections. The outside is fat, slow and meandering, ideal for long-boarders and even beginners, while the inside is a really terrific, fast little right hander. On a good day it delivers perfect barrels.

Receive world class coaching tips and when you’re not riding a wave, eat and drink like a king. Chill out, take it easy and bask in the sun or experience one of the many activities at Kandooma Maldives. And when those tired muscles beg for respite, it’s good to know the Kandooma Spa by COMO Shambhala has a massage treatment designed especially for surfers.

For surfers the 2024 Surf Legend Series at Kandooma is one not to be missed. Book early to avoid disappointment, as numbers are strictly limited to ensure the best possible experience for participants.

For information about the Surfing Legends Series, visit https://www.perfectwavetravel.com/surf-trips/legends/

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Gili Lankanfushi Maldives expands wellbeing offering with tennis pro, visiting practitioner

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At Gili Lankanfushi Maldives wellbeing is a deeply personal journey. This season, the award-winning eco-luxury resort is enriching that journey with the arrival of two exceptional specialists, each bringing a unique approach to helping guests reconnect with themselves through movement, mindfulness and transformative experiences.

Joining the resort as Resident Tennis Pro, Nikola Vučković offers bespoke tennis lessons tailored to players of all ages and abilities. With more than 15 years of international coaching experience, Nikola combines technical expertise, tactical insight and personalised guidance to help guests build confidence and elevate their game. His distinguished career includes coaching players to success at European Championships, ITF tournaments and national-level competitions. In partnership with Tipsarevic Luxury Tennis, the personalised lessons cater to all skill levels, providing professional instruction and expert guidance to help guests improve their technique, develop their confidence and enhance their overall game. Whether stepping onto the court for the first time or refining advanced skills, guests can enjoy a rewarding and engaging tennis experience in a relaxed island setting.

Complementing the resort’s active lifestyle experiences is Dr Aradhana, a visiting wellness practitioner in residence until the end of September. With more than a decade of experience in holistic wellbeing, she offers a nurturing and personalised approach designed to help guests restore balance between the body, mind and emotions. Through bespoke therapies and immersive wellness sessions, Dr Aradhana creates a supportive space for relaxation, self-discovery and renewal, encouraging guests to reconnect with themselves and cultivate a deeper sense of wellbeing that extends beyond their stay.

Guests can also take part in E-Motion Flow: Moving Body to Release Emotions, a complimentary wellness session led by Aradhana that combines movement and breathwork to support emotional release, inner balance and overall wellbeing.

Together, these experiences reflect Gili Lankanfushi’s belief that luxury travel should nourish both body and soul. Whether discovering the joy of tennis, embracing holistic wellness practices or simply taking time to reconnect with oneself, guests are invited to embark on a journey that is as restorative as it is inspiring.

By bringing together experts from the worlds of sport and wellness, Gili Lankanfushi continues to create meaningful experiences that encourage guests to return home feeling refreshed, empowered and renewed.

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Awards

.Here Baa Atoll recognised for landscape and suite design at AHEAD Asia 2026

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.Here Baa Atoll has been named a winner in two categories at the AHEAD Asia 2026 Awards, receiving honours for Landscaping & Outdoor Spaces and Suite. The recognition celebrates the private island retreat’s distinctive approach to hospitality design, where architecture, interiors and landscape have been conceived as a unified response to one of the Maldives’ most extraordinary natural settings.

The wins follow .Here’s selection among the 2026 AHEAD Asia shortlist, which was drawn from a record field of more than 220 entries from across the region. The project was recognised alongside its creative collaborators Kulör Group, Muza Lab and Topo Design Studio.

Set within the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of Baa Atoll, .Here takes an intentionally intimate approach to island hospitality, comprising just nine expansive residences across two natural islands, Somewhere and Nowhere. Rather than treating the landscape as a backdrop, the design places it at the centre of the experience, creating an architecture that responds to light, movement, material and the changing relationship between land and ocean.

The architectural vision was conceived by Christopher Chua of Kulör Group, with interiors by Inge Moore of London-based Muza Lab. The two disciplines were developed around a shared principle: spaces should feel grounded in their environment rather than imposed upon it. Indoor and outdoor areas flow into one another, while natural materials, muted tones and tactile layers create interiors that are deliberately restrained. Views towards the horizon, lagoon and sky become part of the composition, with architecture serving to frame rather than compete with the landscape.

That dialogue with nature extends through the residences themselves. Carefully considered proportions balance openness with intimacy, while transitions between beach and ocean, shade and sunlight, and interior and exterior spaces are designed to feel fluid. The architecture follows the contours of the islands, with residences positioned to maximise views and the experience of sunrise and sunset. Passive cooling strategies and responsibly sourced materials also form part of the project’s environmentally sensitive approach.

Inside, Muza Lab draws on the maritime character of the Maldives through bespoke furnishings, artisanal detailing and natural textures. References to traditional dhonis, celestial navigation and the shifting colours of the Indian Ocean are interpreted subtly rather than literally, creating spaces that feel contemporary while retaining a strong sense of place. Even the names of .Here’s residences look beneath the waterline for inspiration, referencing the coral reefs and marine formations that shape the ecosystem of Baa Atoll.

The Landscaping & Outdoor Spaces award places particular emphasis on another important element of the project: the relationship between the built environment and the existing island landscape. Working alongside Kulör Group and Muza Lab, Topo Design Studio approached the landscape as an extension of the architecture, retaining native vegetation and shaping pathways, gardens and shared spaces around the connection between land, sea and sky.

The Suite award, meanwhile, recognises the residential experience at the heart of .Here. Rather than conventional hotel accommodation, the retreat is composed entirely of large-scale private residences designed around space, privacy and a close relationship with the ocean. Across the project, architecture and interiors move between expansive living areas and quieter, more intimate spaces, allowing the experience of the surrounding landscape to remain ever-present.

The two awards mark a progression from .Here Baa Atoll’s earlier recognition as an AHEAD Asia finalist across multiple design disciplines and underscore the strength of the collaboration between Seaside Hotels & Resorts, Kulör Group, Muza Lab and Topo Design Studio. The official AHEAD shortlist credits the same project team across .Here’s Landscaping & Outdoor Spaces and Suite entries.

With the Asia winners now advancing to compete with winning projects from other regions, .Here Baa Atoll will progress to the next AHEAD Global edition, where the programme’s worldwide champions will be determined.

For .Here, the recognition ultimately reflects a design philosophy that is intentionally quiet: architecture that gives precedence to its surroundings, interiors informed by place rather than decoration, and a landscape allowed to retain its own identity. The result is a retreat where the experience of design is inseparable from the experience of Baa Atoll itself.

To learn more about .Here Baa Atoll, visit www.here-maldives.com.

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Awards

Three years, three wins: Siyam World retains Most Innovative Resort title at TTM Awards

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Siyam World Maldives, part of the Lifestyle Collection at Sun Siyam Resorts, a collection created for travellers looking for something less traditional. It probably explains a few things about us.

Apparently, once was not enough. Or twice.

For the third consecutive year, Siyam World Maldives has been named Most Innovative Resort at the TTM Awards 2026. We must be on to something here.

Three consecutive wins is starting to look less like a coincidence and more like a habit.

With one of the most extensive collections of experiences in the Maldives, there is a lot going on here. Guests can spend their entire holiday doing absolutely nothing.

They can also spend it doing almost everything.

The choice is rather the point.

Siyam World is home to 16 different villa categories, from Beach Villas with Pool to Over Water Villas with Slides, giving guests plenty of ways to find their own version of island life. Then there is the food. Guests can move around from one dining experience to another without feeling like they are eating at the same place twice. Different cuisines, different settings and enough choice to make deciding where to have dinner feel like a game of roulette.

And then there are the experiences.

This is where the Most Innovative Resort title starts to make a little more sense.

Siyam World is home to the largest floating water park in the Maldives, the first and only horse ranch in the country, and an ever-growing line-up of experiences that are not exactly what you would expect to find on a Maldivian island. There’s a Jetcar, a first-of-its-kind electric go-kart track, extensive sports facilities, overwater villas with slides and pools, and a 24-hour premium all-inclusive concept designed to keep the choice going long after dinner.

Even the reef has become part of the story, with the new Shipwreck project bringing together an unusual mix of adventure and reef restoration.

And the innovation does not stop at what is already here. Football camps have become a regular part of life at Siyam World, bringing international football legends to the island to work with young guests. The idea has always been bigger than a photo opportunity. It is about creating experiences that guests, especially the little ones, will actually remember.

Innovation at Siyam World has never been about introducing something new just for the sake of saying it is new. It is about asking what a Maldivian holiday could be if we stopped assuming there was only one way to do it.

Three years. Three wins.

Still doing things differently.

But an award for innovation comes with an interesting question.

What are they doing next?

With Halloween around the corner, the festive season already taking shape and another line-up of football camps on the horizon, one thing is certain, Siyam World is already busy dreaming up its next big idea.

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