Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC / Visit Maldives) and Musafir.com have kicked off an exciting marketing campaign during which visitors to City Center Deira Mall, Dubai, get to experience the Maldives through virtual reality (VR) . The campaign activities will be held from 10th to 16th May.

Under this campaign, a VR booth will be set up at a designated location of the City Center Deira Mall, where visitors can have a VR experience of the Maldives. The beautiful sights of the destination will be showcased through this campaign, aiming to inspire more people from Dubai and the Middle East to visit the Maldives. Furthermore, during this campaign, 2 targeted social media posts and a contest post will be uploaded on Musafir.com’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Stories related to the Maldives will be shared on both platforms everyday of the campaign and emails with information or advertisements of the destination will also be circulated to the Musafir.com database, exceeding 300 thousand members.

Founded in 2007, Musafir.com is UAE’s first premium-experience online travel website and it runs a network of 9 branches in UAE under the brand, having served over a million travelers since its inception. It is the leading cross-sector online travel agency in UAE working with businesses, travelers and corporate clients. City Center Deira Mall which opened in 1995 is one of the flagship malls in Dubai. It ranks as one of the most successful malls in the world with over 22 million visitors recorded annually. The campaign is expected to increase visibility for the Maldives through interactions with visitors from Dubai and beyond during this campaign between MMPRC and Musafir.com.

This campaign with Musafir.com is held as part of our marketing strategy for the Middle East, which targets to maintain Maldives’ brand visibility and establish Maldives as a top of the mind destination for countries in this market. The strategy is also based on promoting the uniqueness of the Maldives as the world’s leading destination and market our products including resorts, guesthouses, hotels and liveaboards as well as our unique experiences.

Last year, Maldives welcomed 91,413 tourists to the country from the Middle Eastern market with Saudi Arabia ranked as the top 7th market to Maldives. From January to February this year the country has recorded 21,117 arrivals from the Middle East market. MMPRC has planned several activities targeting the Middle East market under the effort to maintain destination visibility. This includes joint-marketing campaigns, webinars, participation in major fairs and exhibitions, roadshows, and hosting familiarization trips.

As the company responsible for marketing the Maldives as a destination abroad, MMPRC carried out 260 different marketing activities in 22 global markets last year, including fairs, roadshows, familiarization trips, marketing campaigns, webinars, and interviews. The greatest testament to the success of these activities came late last year, as the Maldives secured the title of ‘World’s Leading Destination’ (among several other accolades) at the 2021 World Travel Awards, globally recognised as the hallmark of industry excellence.  This is the second consecutive year that the Maldives had successfully earned this prestigious title, a shining testimony of the trust placed in the ‘magic of Maldivian hospitality’ by travelers from all over the globe.

This year also celebrates an exceptional year to visit the Maldives – the Golden Jubilee celebration of tourism in the Maldives kicked off earlier last year with plans to conduct new and exciting activities throughout the year.