Bathala, Maldives – Picture through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
28 November 2020: Maldives received the World’s Leading Destination award at the Grand Finale of the World Travel Awards 2020 announced at a virtual event. This is the first time Maldives won the award in the history of the island nation, which is also the most distinguished award category of World Travel Awards. Maldives competed in this category with 22 other destinations including Dubai, Malaysia, Spain, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka.
World Travel Awards established in 1993, is the most prestigious honours program in the global travel and tourism industry recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of industry excellence. It serves to acknowledge, reward, and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry. Maldives receiving such an esteemed recognition during the most challenging of times faced by the tourism industry has never been more important.
Upon receiving the award, Minister of Tourism H. E. Dr. Abdulla Mausoom said “Maldives winning World’s Leading Destination award is a strong endorsement of the popularity of Maldives amongst international tourists. This superb win reflects the strong determination and sound policies of HEP Solih and his administration, strive and strides of travel and tourism industry partners and employees; targeted #VisitMaldives promotion by industry partners and MMPRC and of course the warm smile of Maldivians. Congratulations!
Speaking on behalf of Visit Maldives, the Managing Director Mr. Thoyyib Mohamed expressed his sincere appreciation and gratitude to everyone who voted for Maldives and the tourism industry stakeholders. he stated,
“We are beyond thrilled to receive the World’s Leading Destination award for the first time in the history of Maldives. This prestigious award means a lot to Maldives, especially as we achieved this during these difficult times. Thank you everyone who voted for us. And thank you to the travel industry partners for the immense work carried out to accomplish this. I would like to thank His Excellency President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih for the support and close guidance especially in the recovery process of the nation and the tourism industry”.
For further information
https://visitmaldives.com/en/news/maldives-is-the-worlds-leading-destination-of-2020?fbclid=IwAR1ovMpe-gIGyOIlrJt6eC3799_ZKs7AJ6vW2uiV2Y4LncokYx5ybgIxAeg
