Manta Media Maldives is a travel news, features, and advice website focussing on the Maldives.
We are highly selective about the stories we curate. The aim is to offer compelling articles and information that’s genuinely useful and inspiring for travellers. We don’t charge resorts to cover their news, as part of our pledge to maintain our journalistic integrity. Any advertorials (branded content) are marked as such.
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Hello Travel Massive collective!
I'm a travel journalist and recently soft-launched a travel news, features, and advice website — Manta Media Maldives (mmmaldives.com) focussing on the Maldives — because I believe there was a need for one that thoroughly checks facts, doesn't just reprint press releases verbatim, and gives honest advice (currently the vaping ban article is the most-read story).
I lived in the Maldives for five years and frequently return for writing and research. In total, I've been writing about the Maldives for 15 years from a traveller's perspective and I'm one of the only foreign travel writers to have lived in the Maldives long term.
My question is, is there anything you'd like to know about the Maldives that you haven't seen written about anywhere else, or something you feel should be talked about but you can't find the answer to anywhere?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and will do my best to answer! Thanks a million!
Hi Sarah, thanks for sharing Manta Media Maldives with the Travel Massive community!
It's wonderful to see a travel destination website with some honest editorial values.
I haven't been to the Maldives so I really only have an understanding of it as a tourism destination through the lense of industry conferences (e.g WTM, ITB, etc) and travel blogs. That said, I'd be interested in the following:
1. What new trends might be emerging (e.g. shifts in visitor numbers, new technologies)
2. What industries exist outside of tourism? If tourism disappeared, what would replace it?
3. Where to Maldives locals travel to internationally? And how many.
Keep up the great work and one day I might make it over there!
Hi Ian,
Thank you very much for the kind words and encouragement!
Sure, I'd be happy to try to answer your questions.
1) What new trends might be emerging (e.g. shifts in visitor numbers, new technologies)
I'd say that guest house tourism continues to go from strength to strength, there are around 800 guest houses (versus about 200 resort islands) now. Guest house tourism was only introduced in 2009. Many of the guest houses are actually more like boutique hotels, so 'guest house' is more of a term used in the Maldives to classify them as being different lodgings to resorts, which are on separate private islands.
By law, there's only one resort per island, and no towns are allowed to share the resort island, so there's a segregation of the local community from resort guests. Guest houses, however, are located in the island towns and villages. This makes them a great option for those interested in authentic cultural immersions, which has been growing as a travel trend over the past couple of years in particular. So we're seeing a shift from some visitors towards guest houses, which often offer better value for money too than the cheapest resorts (which can be a little run down sometimes).
I'll post the next answer as a reply below! :)
2) What industries exist outside of tourism? If tourism disappeared, what would replace it?
The next biggest industry after tourism is fishing - and because they only allow pole and line fishing, Maldivian fish are from sustainable stocks. More than 50,000 tonnes of sustainably caught certified skipjack tuna to Europe and North America every year! However, fishing is still a small sector - only 6% of the GDP vs 30% of the GDP for tourism. Tourism has actually taken the Maldives from a developing country to an upper middle income country in 50 years according to UN rankings. Sooo, if it disappeared (heaven forbid), I presume fishing would then become the main industry again.
3) Where to Maldives locals travel to internationally? And how many.
A lot of Maldivians holiday in neighboring countries like India or Sri Lanka (some have second homes there, too). Malaysia is a popular destination for Maldivians as well. Those families that can afford it often send their kids to university in the UK, USA and Australia too. I don't have any stats on this actually, not sure if anyone does! But it's a great question!
Thanks again for your interest and feel free to ask if you have any other questions. I hope you get to visit the Maldives one day! :)