- By : Mr. Aditya Agarawal
- Date: 13-07-2013
- Views : 2537
- [Naifaru, Maldives]
In the late 1960s a UN agency said tourism prospects in the Maldives were non-existent. Adrian Neville charts the country's rapid rise from isolated, electricity-free islands to exceptional luxury travel retreat.
A team of experts from the United Nations Development Programme went to the Maldives in the late 1960s and wrote a report on the prospects for tourism in the country. There were none, they concluded. Don’t even bother trying: the obstacles are too big. If that seems like the least perspicacious report in tourism history, you could at least see their point. At the time, the Maldives didn’t have a bank. Or an airport. Or electricity on the islands. And the only way to get around was by sailing, very slowly, in a traditional dhoni .
The chance meeting in Colombo of an Italian adventurer, George Corbin , who hadn’t read the report, and a Maldivian, Ahmed Naseem , was the genesis of an industry that may welcome a million visitors this year to what is possibly the world’s most prestigious destination.
The Maldivians who own and run Universal Resorts and Crown & Champa Resorts are the kings of the industry, admired, respected and envied. Back in 1972, that small group of friends were the young guns with spark and ambition who welcomed Corbin and his 22 guests to Male, put them up in three houses (there were no guesthouses), cooked for them (after one disastrous restaurant meal) and sailed with them around islands suitable for development. A “special correspondent” from the Morning Sun, a new English-language newspaper, met Corbin and his party soon after their arrival and immortalised the birth of tourism on the front page.
On October 28, 1972 – just over 40 years ago – the first paying guests came. The Italians were accommodated in 30 rooms hastily built on an island renamed Kurumba (a young coconut). The walls were made of coral, the beams of coconut wood and the roofs palm-thatched. Each room had a bed, wardrobe, luggage rack and dressing table. That’s all. Drinking water was rainwater or from a well. Meals were a repetition of tuna curry, rice, coconut and bananas. But they were in paradise.
