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News Archives - April 2009
Saying I DO in the Maldives
With its long stretches of powdery white sand and sparkling turquoise waters, the Maldives has everything it takes to become a top wedding destination.
And that is precisely what incumbent president, Mohamed Nasheed, envisions for the Maldivian tourism industry.
The president made the bold announcement in two British newspapers while on an official visit to the UK last week.
He said he planned to revise the current regulations in the 100 per cent Muslim country to allow for non-Islamic marriages.
Speaking to Minivan News today, tourism minister Dr Ahmed Ali Sawad said allowing tourists to marry in the Maldives would be a major boost to the tourism industry.
The Maldives’ has been badly hit by the global recession with a 14 per cent drop in tourist arrivals in February compared to the same time last year.
“We have done an initial survey…a lot of honeymooners say they would have liked to get married here,” said Sawad.
He added the option of getting married in destinations similar to the Maldives, such as Antigua in the Caribbean, had dramatically increased tourism numbers.
Several resorts in the Maldives currently offer ceremonial weddings but these carry no legal weight.
Elvis Follet, PR manager for Conrad Maldives Rangali – one of the resorts that hosts ceremonial marriages – said “there will definitely be a big demand for it”.
Dr Abdullah Mausoon, the former tourism minister and a member of the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), said non-Islamic marriages for tourists was an initiative which had first been proposed by the previous government.
He said it was a huge market, but the government should only implement the plan once it had consulted those in the tourism industry.
Another DRP member, Aneesa Ahmed, said she did not foresee any problems with the proposal as long as non-Islamic marriages were “done away from inhabited islands and without encroaching on the sanctity of the local communities”.
But Sawad said the option of marriage in the Maldives would be open to all tourists whether they were staying in resorts or guesthouses on inhabited islands.
At present, the Maldives only offers high-end tourism at resorts separated from islands inhabited by locals.
But the government has pledged to introduce mid-market and budget options for travellers by building guesthouses on inhabited islands or nearby uninhabited islands.
Mohamed Sim Ibrahim, secretary general of the Maldives Association Tourism Industry (MATI), has said although there is high demand from tour operators and tourists alike, the subject is a sensitive one due to the religious implications.
“We are already the number one honeymoon destination and we already have tourists writing to us asking why they can’t get married here,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place for people to have memories which will last forever.”
According to British travel agents Kuoni, which specialise in foreign weddings, as the cost of UK weddings escalates each year, more and more couples are choosing to tie the knot abroad.
The top five overseas wedding destinations are Sri Lanka, Mauritius, the USA, Kenya and St Lucia.
Source: Minivan News
