Outdoor advertising campaign kicked off with Mediamond in Italy to increase brand presence for the Maldives. The joint campaign between Visit Maldives and Mediamond will be held in two phases, for 3 weeks in December 2021 and 1 week in January 2022.

Mediamond is Italy's leading editorial content digital sales house thanks to the joint strength of Mediaset - the first Italian media group, and Mondadori - the leading magazines publishing house. Their portfolio consists of over 70 media brands among the most important on the Italian scene, names known and loved by the public, able to naturally intertwine the products with the editorial fabric and to emphasize the affinities and values that the products represent. They have leading numbers in print, web, mobile, radio and digital out of home to ensure the visibility necessary to make advertising effective.

The campaign, jointly conducted by Visit Maldives and Mediamond, targets to further promote Maldives as a safe haven, increase brand presence and a greater degree of affinity with Maldives amongst Italians, in order to re-establish Maldives as top of mind destination as they book winter holidays. To achieve this digital advertising of the Maldives will be displayed in 6 strategic areas in Milan. This will assist in creating awareness on different segments of tourism in Maldives including romance, wellness, luxury, diving and watersports. It aims to maintain a strong market presence at a time other island destinations have also become open to Italian travelers.

This campaign is held in line with Visit Maldives’ marketing strategy for the Italian market, aiming to promote the destination as a safe haven for Italian tourists. The campaign will promote the Maldivian resorts, hotels, guesthouses and liveaboards, along with experiences unique to the Maldives to Italian travel trade and tourists. This campaign is expected to increase future bookings and arrivals from the Italian market.

So far this year we have held several activities targeting this market, including a campaign with Welcome Travels, campaign with Easy Market and BIT Milan. Ongoing activities for the Italian market by Visit Maldives includes joint Campaign with Alpitour, E-Learning Campaign and Joint Campaign with Bluvacanze. Future activities planned ahead for this market include Campaign with Lonely Planet.

Prior to the pandemic in 2020, Italy ranked as the 4th top source market to Maldives with 46,690 arrivals while the country ranked as the 3rd top source market to Maldives in 2019 with 136,343 arrivals. Since the pandemic, the arrivals from the market declined drastically due to travel restrictions and measures taken across the globe. On 29th September, the Italian government established a travel corridor with tourist destinations including the Maldives, which allows Italians to travel to Maldives without quarantine-on-arrival upon returning to Italy. So far this year Maldives has welcomed over 1,060,004 with 12,633 tourists visiting the Maldives from Italy.

Our target is to achieve pre-pandemic arrivals from the Italian market by holding promotional and marketing activities and position Maldives as the top destination of choice for Italian travelers as borders are now reopening for leisure travel.