(AGI) - Milan, Jun. 23 - According to the Milan observatory around 7 million Italians are going on holiday on the last week end of July. Five million will only spend a weekend outside their cities, while other two million will have a real holiday. Among the holiday makers there are the young who have already ended the high school-end exams (half million). 450,000 million people will leave from Rome, 200,000 will leave from Milan, 90,000 from Turin, 50,000 from Genoa and Bologna. Seventy per cent will go by car, 25 pct by train and 5 pct by plane. Seventy per cent of holiday makers will go to their holiday house or will be hosted by relatives and friends. Other 25 will go on holiday in hotels and bed and breakfasts. The favoured resorts are the coasts of Liguria and the Adriatic Sea. Paris, London, Madrid, Barcelona and Prague are the favoured European capitals while who will go outside Europe will visit Cuba, the Red Sea and the Maldives.

Maldives launches promotions aimed for over 100 Australian travel agents, wholesalers, and media companies interested in further developing ties with the island-tourism destination. “Australians love to travel for adventure, action, romance and pampering, and the Maldives offers all those attractions in abundance,” the tourism promotion board’s Ismail Shahyr said.

“Unfortunately too few Australians know about us, and our task is to ask the Australian travel industry to join us in raising our country’s profile and generating more demand from Australians looking for a great surf, dive, cultural and spa resort experience”.

Made up of more than 1200 tiny islands and atolls the Maldives is going through a mini development boom in the archipelago with 35 new islands being set aside for tourism recently.

“Tourism is now our biggest industry, and the trend is for stronger growth in the future. A very good indicator of that growth is that while we already have 87 resorts ranging from budget to super luxury there are a further 46 in the pipeline. As well as that, we are seeing strong growth in the number of operators packaging water-based activities like surfing and diving and a growing interest in the sea-based culture of our 1190 islands and 26 natural atolls,” concluded Mr. Shahyr.

Australians made up 1.3 per cent of the 616,716 visitors to the Maldives in 2004. At the moment Australians can fly to the Maldives in 12-15 hours with Singapore Airlines, Emirates or Malaysian Airlines. It is the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board’s intention to develop more ties in the Australian market in order to improve accessibility and traffic from the market.

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Dubai: The Maldives hopes to achieve pre-tsunami tourist numbers this year as it searches for new markets for attracting holidaymakers.

The December 2004 tsunami had a devastating effect on the country, slashing its tourist arrivals from 616,716 in 2004 to 395,320 last year.

“Our aim this year is to have about the same number of foreign tourists as we had in 2004,” Maldives Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) assistant director Mohammad Adam told Gulf News.

The idyllic holiday destination in the Indian Ocean receives only a small number of Arab tourists from the Gulf region. Last year 290 Kuwaitis and 691 Saudis visited the Maldives compared with 573 and 1,872 respectively before the tsunami.

35 islands

“We get a significant number of expatriates from the Gulf, but the number of citizens is very small. We are trying to get more Arab tourists,” Adam said.

During a recent tourism promotion campaign in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the Maldives announced that it would offer 35 islands to investors for developing resorts.

A total of 1,190 islands make up the Maldives and 202 of these are uninhabited. More than one-third of its 360,000 citizens live in the capital Male. A large number of islands serve as tourist spots and host self-contained resorts.

According to MTPB, occupancy in hotels and resorts between January and April touched 94 per cent compared with 85 per cent average occupancy in 2004 and 64 per cent in 2005.

The tsunami destroyed 21 resorts out of 87. Most of these resorts have been rebuilt and the government has launched plans to build new resorts on the uninhabited islands. The cost of developing the 35 resorts is estimated at $600 million. Ten of these resorts will cater to the high-end market, 10 will serve the low-budget travellers and 15 in various other categories will be developed by the Maldivian government.

“There is a demand for more capacity, that is why we have launched these developments. We have made a good recovery,” Adam said.

During the January-April period the Maldives recorded 182,758 tourist arrivals, compared with 39,179 for the same period last year.

The Maldives had a capacity of 16,000 beds, which dropped by 3,886 after the tsunami.

Source: Gulf News

Seoul, 11 June 2006 – Maldives has received The Best Tourism Publicity Award by the Korean Tourism Association at the 19th Korea World Travel Fair held in Seoul from 8 to 11 June 2006.

The Maldives exhibited at this fair as part of MTPB’s initiative to increase in-bound tourism from South Korea and to build solid partnerships with the Korean travel trade companies.

The secluded nature of the Maldives, with its unique coral coral islands and crystal clear waters accompanied by its world class services make it a demanding long haul island destination for the expanding South Korean outbound leisure market.

The Maldives welcomed 4,948 South Korean visitors from January to May this year. This is an increase of 25 percent compared to the same period of 2004.

A string of pearls scattered over the deep blue Indian Ocean - The first glimpse you get of this fascinating atoll- formation confirms two unique aspects of the Republic of Maldives.Not only does it consist of the most beautiful tropical islands, but 99% of its 90.000 km² is covered by the sea. 1190 islands are spread over 26 atolls, ringlike coral formations enclosing a lagoon, which gives the Maldives its unique paradise-like appearance. They stretch for about 820 km from North to South, 130 km at the widest point and do not exceed a length of 4.5 miles or an altitude of 6 feet above sea level. No more than 200 islands are inhabited, the rest includes the 87 tourist resorts and uninhabited islands, some of which are used for drying fish or other agricultural activities. The capital Malé, the seat of government and the centre of trade, commerce, business, health and education, is located in the middle of the atoll chain, a small island buzzing with the sounds and activities of about 75.000 people which is about one third of the population.

Atoll Formation

The atolls of the Maldives are formed from coral structures, separated by lagoons. The atolls are in fact part of a greater structure known as the Laccadives-Chagos Ridge, which stretches over 2000 kilometres. The islands are low lying with the highest point at approximately 8 feet above sea level. ‘Faru’ or ring-shaped reef structures form the atolls and these reefs provide natural defense against wind and wave action, on these delicate islands.