IMTM 2019 Officially Launched

IMTM Pvt. Ltd. has announced the launch of the second edition of the International Maldives Travel Market (IMTM) 2019, a B2B travel and trade fair that brings together leading tour operators, travel agencies, destination management companies and other businesses related to the tourism industry from different parts of the world to explore opportunities and liaise with a major representation of the Maldives Tourism Industry including Resorts, Hotels, Guesthouse, Liveaboards, Local Travel Agents and Tour Operators.

IMTM 2019 was officially launched this evening by the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Dr. Naushad Mohamed at a ceremony held at Maagiri Hotel. The ceremony was attended by government officials, head of corporations, industry representatives, partners of IMTM and media partners. The fair is planned to be held from 22nd to 23rd June 2019 at Farukolhufushi, Hulhumale’, Phase 2. The event aims to host 50 Hosted Buyers (an increase of 56%) representative of 25 countries (an increase of 32%) and achieve a Trade Visitor participation target of 300 representatives (an increase of 100%) compared to the year 2018.

Ms. Hawwa Shiuna Khalid, the Managing Director of IMTM comments:

“Unlike the traditional fairs IMTM used a different approach where International Buyers were stationed in meetings booths. The local participants visited them as Trade Visitors which made it possible for IMTM to make it cost effective for the Local Trade Visitors. Meetings were prescheduled through the online meeting booking portal developed by IMTM in-house technical team.”

The first edition of IMTM 2018 was held from the 23rd-24th June 2018 at Adaaran Select Hudhuranfushi Resort, Maldives. This year’s event featured 32 Hosted Buyers representing 19 countries spread throughout 5 continents. The event also featured 127 Trade Visitors representing 44 Resorts, 42 Guesthouses, 21 Liveaboards, 03 Hotels, and 13 Local Travel Agents and Tour Operators.

IMTM team shared the feedback collected from the participants and hosted buyers after a post event survey conducted. According to the findings, the main objective of participating in IMTM was to build new contacts, 80% of the participants reported that business meetings conducted at IMTM was “Valuable”. 40% of the participants reported conducting between 21 to 20 business meetings during the fair. A total of MVR 2.5M worth of sales were generated at the two-day fair itself. 78% of the participants said “yes” to participating in IMTM 2019.

According to Atlanta Tourism, a hosted buyer from Turkey stated that “For the first time it is a very successful organization. Setups were traditional and well organized. We saw new properties and some alternatives for the traditional and local island tourism.”

Moreover, Secret Paradise, a trade visitor also commented saying “I think you did an amazing job and you should be proud of what you achieved, even though there will be learning points and things you will want to do differently. I had more meetings with agents interested in the Maldives in the two days than would have done in two days at ITB/WTM at a very cost-effective rate, even with my overnight stays. I look forward to attending 2019.”

IMTM has also released Request for Proposal (RFP) announcement today to accommodate the 50 hosted buyers that will visit IMTM 2019. The detail regarding the RPF will be available from IMTM website and the deadline for RFP submission is 20^th January 2019. Also, registration for both Hosted Buyers and Local Trade visitors are open through IMTM website www.imtimonline.com. The finalized list of Hosted Buyers will be published before the 16th of May 2019 and the deadline for Trade Visitor registration is set to 23rd May 2019.

Similar to this year, trade visitor fee is set to USD 250 per person per company.