A NEW state agency, Maldives Integrated Tourism Development Corporation (MITDC), has been set up to help nurture small businesses and fast-track an ambitious guesthouse island to be filled with a projected 1,700 rooms.
Hussain Lirar, deputy minister of tourism, said that the guesthouse project was brought under the MITDC from its developer, the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC), since the latter was too busy with marketing and has led to delays in the development.
“The new agency was announced by president Abdulla Yameen this month since the government is keen to finish this project by 2018 when presidential elections are due,” Lirar toldTTG Asia e-Daily on the sidelines of a hospitality conference held in Colombo last week.
The guesthouse island project, aimed at creating more small and medium businesses, was launched in June 2014 and slated for completion by 2017 on the Laamu Atoll. The MMPRC moved the project to Baresdhoo in the same atoll last year.
The Maldives has been gripped with political uncertainty over the past several months but it has yet adversely affected tourism, the country’s main economic activity.
However, slower growth this year has been attributed to Brexit and the lacklustre Chinese economy, according to Lirar. Arrivals in 2016 are likely to miss the 1.5 million target.
