The Maldives is renowned as a luxurious, fly-and-flop destination. Located 500 km from the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, it's a serene string of 1,190 low-lying coral islands scattered across the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. Here, you'll find white, sun-kissed beaches and warm, azure blue lagoons studded with colourful corals that are home to exotic marine life.
This tropical archipelago is also lined with swanky water bungalows and upscale resorts, which have made it synonymous with luxury travel and exclusivity.
It hasn’t always been this way, though. Here’s how to get a taste of Maldivian life beyond the five-star tourist trail.
The Maldives wasn't always a renowned tourism hub awash with opulent resorts. As a remote and largely uninhabited archipelago, it was long considered unsuitable for tourism due to a lack of infrastructure and commercial airports.
This all changed when Kurumba, the first resort in the Maldives, opened in 1972. Kurumba kick-started the tourism industry, which has since seen rapid growth. A swathe of luxurious private holiday resorts now inhabit the islands.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Maldives experienced steady growth in tourism arrivals as more resorts were established across the archipelago.
These properties, often built on palm-fringed uninhabited islands and owned by foreign investors, offered travellers a secluded and luxurious retreat with overwater bungalows, pristine beaches and world-class amenities.
By the 1990s, tourism had become the backbone of the Maldivian economy, accounting for a significant portion of the country's GDP and providing employment opportunities for thousands of Maldivians.
In the 2000s and beyond, the government continued to invest in tourism infrastructure, including expanding airports, developing new resorts, and promoting the Maldives as a premier destination for luxury travel for high-end tourists.
The push for rapid tourism development in the Maldives has created several inevitable environmental and social issues for the idyllic archipelago.
A million visitors a year landing on its pristine shores has led to environmental degradation, increased tourism leakage (where foreign investors and multinational corporations control tourism profits), and social change within local communities.
This prompted a call for change in response to mass, resort-based tourism and environmental damage, to protect the island's natural beauty and residents.
The Maldivian government and tourism industry have started to address some of tourism's negative impacts with new regulations and guidelines for sustainable tourism practices and environmental protection measures.
These measures also include promoting local participation in the tourism industry,
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