Maldives has won the award for the Leading Honeymoon Destination at SATA Virtual Awards 2020, in the Visitors Choice Awards category.

The South Asian Travel Awards (SATA) is the region’s top and most prestigious travel and hospitality awarding body. It has been recognising the best of South Asian travel and hospitality since 2016. The prestigious annual event honours stellar organisations and individuals with the aim to revive and raise service standards within the region’s tourism industry. The South Asian Travel Awards is endorsed by 16 regional and international bodies for its accredited work.

This year SATA received over 1,000 nominations in 52 categories for Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Brands, Properties and Businesses to compete from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, in addition to Visitors Choice Awards and Special Recognition Awards.

Similar to the previous years, the SATA team selected a panel of multinational jury members for the evaluation of the nominated properties in 2020. Initially, it was planned for the members of the panel to travel to multiple cities in the region in order to evaluate properties and services. However, in light of the unprecedented challenges faced due to COVID-19, the SATA team and judges jointly decided to conduct evaluations virtually.

The partners of SATA were unveiled earlier this year at an official signing ceremony held at Maagiri Hotel, Male’, Maldives. Key partners include; Gulf Craft Maldives as Platinum Partner, The Hawks Pvt Ltd as Gold Partner, Ooredoo Maldives as Digital Partner, Crowe Maldives as Auditing Partner and Maagiri Hotel as the Hospitality Partner.

SATA opens up for nominations at the start of each year, and interested Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Stakeholders, Properties and Businesses can compete in a wide array of categories in this esteemed regional award ceremony. Each nominee can apply for a maximum of 3 categories. 60% of the award is judged by a multi-national body of highly-acclaimed professionals and industry veterans, while 40% of the award is weighed in via Online Voting and through the performance of the property or business.

This year, Maldives has also received many awards and accolades including the most prestigious World’s Leading Destination award at World Travel Awards 2020. Maldives has also won 4 awards in the Indian Ocean category at World Travel Awards, attesting to this. These categories are Indian Ocean’s Leading Beach Destination 2020, Indian Ocean’s Leading Cruise Destination 2020, Indian Ocean’s Leading Destination 2020 and Indian Ocean’s Leading Dive Destination 2020. The destination has also won the famed Indian Ocean’s Leading Destination award 12 times within the last 16 years, this year being the 13th time.