Maldives Tourism: Understanding the Leiper’s Whole Tourism System Model

This essay analyzes the different aspects of tourism development in Maldives using the Leiper’s Whole Tourism System Model. It discusses the factors that make Maldives attractive to visitors, the main visitor markets, the role of resorts, and the principles of sustainable tourism evident in Maldives.

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Maldives Tourism
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Maldives Tourism
Introduction
Tourism is one of the lucrative businesses worldwide and there is need to analyze the
different aspects of tourism development for better growth. This essay will focus on Maldives as
the tourist destination region under assessment in relation to the Leiper’s Whole Tourism
System. The theories that will be used in the essay will be butler’s theory while the models that
will be used will be the Whole Tourism System Model. The essay will argue that the Leiper’s
Whole Tourism System model is applicable in understanding the practical aspects of tourism
development, operations and management at Maldives.
Overview of tourism development in Maldives
Tourism in Maldives has been in the global scene since 1970s and the first traveler resort
was set up in 1972. Before then, the Maldives was practically obscure to the tourism industry. By
the late 197Os, worldwide tourism had turned into an imperative source of funds for the
Maldives region. The air travel expansion greatly helped in the expansion of tourism in
Maldives. For effective advancement of the business, the government of the Republic of
Maldives set up the Department of Tourism which is in charge of supervision, coordination and
maintaining tourism standards in the region. Various small, uninhabited island were chosen and
rented to resort financial investors to construct resorts. This was known as the resort islands
tourist development policy (Carlsen 2006).
As a result of this policy, the Maldives could lessen the social expense of tourism. For
instance, prostitution, both male and female, was seen identified with tourism resorts. Moreover,
it is guaranteed that the demonstration impacts of the consumption designs of tourists create new

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tastes and improves the local interest for outside buyer items which is not promptly
quantifiable, but a deplete on the remote trade of a developing nation. In any case, it could be
contended that this impact is insignificant on account of the Maldives as 70% of the populace
lives outside Male atoll. In any case, it is possible that there will have been some exhibit impacts
penetrating to Male. Absence of adequate information counteracts estimation of import spillages
because of these demonstration impacts. Moreover, without this detachment, culture stun could
have been normal from presenting travelers with various thoughts, propensities, and
requirements. Social stun can prompt the crumbling of the social texture in a nation, a
breakdown of lawfulness, and conceivable political and monetary fiasco. The strategy of
confinement of remote visitors in the Maldives has decreased the danger of such a chain of
event.
Factors that make Maldives attractive to visitors
According to Backer and Hing (2016), tourists visit different locations to search for
interactions with features of a place, the place characteristics and have leisure experiences. In
Maldives, tourists are attracted by the warm and tropical climate of the region. The region has
both low daytime and evening temperatures which results to cool evenings and warm daytimes.
The sea breezes from the sea further contribute to a relaxing weather sought by most tourists.
People also visit Maldives because of the sun since it provides a wide daylight area. Privacy is
also another factor that most tourists consider in making the decision to visit a region (Tasur, Lin
&Liu 2013). The many allots makes the Maldives an enticing spot to visit since the visitors enjoy
a beautiful view of the entire place and can enjoy privacy in the private allots , feel and hear
undisturbed nature, alone and without anyone else. The different fish species and other water
creatures (more than 1000 species) are an extraordinary fascination and take into account the

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well-known tourism exercises of swimming, fishing and diving. The Indian Ocean tides during
rainstorms have influenced this abundance of fish from minor shrimp beautiful sharks and fish
(Shakeela 2016). Maldives is also a peaceful region with no cases of political instability that is
also another factor that attracts tourists. This is owing to the fact that most tourists visiting the
region are often looking for a place to relax and enjoy nature. Moreover, the economy of the
country is quite favorable which makes it affordable for most of the tourists.
Main visitor markets
Since Maldives is a travel-generating region, operators who are transnational organize a
significant piece of the Maldivian tourist industry, particularly tour operations that are bundled.
According to Leiper's model of Whole Tourism System, a travel-generating region is a region
that motivates individuals to develop the longing to travel (Backer and Hing 2016). Packaged
tour operations by agencies are a focal component in foreign tourism to the Republic of
Maldives. The major tour operators have their home office in the developed nations. Maldives,
as a less-developed nation (LDC) is subject to these mass traveler operators who have some
capacity to guide the stream of tourists to a specific nation or area. Their watchfulness can
influence the resort limit usage. Most resorts in the Maldives have specific connections with at
least one of these global tour operators. These operators thusly decide the predominant
nationalities utilizing a specific resort island.
Asia and the Pacific are the main provider of tourists to the Maldives, representing
around 49% of tourists as indicated in Figure 1.0 below. Europe is also a main source of tourists
with a percentage of 43%.Tourist entries from America, Africa and Middle East have declined
significantly as of late. Asia is, alongside Europe, the most essential wellspring of vacationers for

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the Maldives. Most of the Asian tourist’s visit Maldives are small businesspeople who come to
buy electrical and material things and after that exchanged at a benefit. Such guests do not
remain on the resort islands but in Male, with companions or relatives, or in little visitor houses
(frequently in unregistered spots to maintain a strategic distance from Maldivian government
charges). While they do not bring much foreign exchange to the tourism part, they benefit the
trade segment of the Maldives.
Figure 1.0.Maldvine Tourists Market Share
(Retrieved from: https://www.hoteliermaldives.com/tourism-markers the-maldivian-tourism-
industry-2015-in-survey/)
Role of resorts in Maldives
Maldives has focused on enabling creative tourism by using their results. According to
Chang, Backman & Huang (2014), creative tourism strategy motivates the tourists to keep

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visiting the region. This is because the tourists visiting Maldives are particularly impressed by
the convenience offered by the resorts. These resorts serve as the tourism industries which
according to Leiper’s WTS model, are the organizations that influence the activities of tourists.
The rooms in every resort are for the most part designed to look like local lodging, with coral for
the dividers and palm leaves for the material. Restaurants, bars, and different facilities, built
comparably, are in a focal complex in the resort. Facilities are self-contained since each resort
has its own generator, water supply, radiophone, a little harbor for mooring, and its own
speedboats to transport visitors to Male, to the air terminal, or to different islands (Ahmed 2018).
Since the resorts were at first possessed by the government, the funding to support resorts'
development came fundamentally from the government’s financial plan. In any case, from 1978
onwards, recently settled private business endeavors began giving working and value money to
tourism. Foreign investment is as often as possible requested by local resort owners, but profit
settlements by foreign financial investors are uncontrolled. The development of resorts is linked
to butler’s theory, which argues that in the involvement stage, there is emergence of tourism
facilities that directly affect tourism although they may not be the main tourist attraction aspects
(Butler 2015). This may include guesthouses.
Principles of sustainable tourism evident in Maldives
Although Maldives has a long way to go in attaining sustainable tourism, the
environmental sustainability principle is evident in the region. The Government of the Maldives
has created enactment so as to control resorts development in the region. While setting up a
resort, an Environmental Impact Assessment ought to be done with a specific end goal to
evaluate the ecological impacts the advancement may have on the indigenous habitat. However,
this is frequently directed by the engineers as opposed to a government official, resulting to

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numerous conceivably harsh resort outlines being endorsed without investigation (Scheyvens
2011). Enactment restricts the most extreme developed zone to 20% of the aggregate land zone
and all rooms should face the shoreline, five straight meters of shoreline line must be allocated to
every visitor in front of their rooms where just 68 percent of the shoreline length can be allotted
to visitor rooms as 20 percent must be apportioned to public use and twelve percent left as public
space. This has resulted to the dissatisfaction of the local people since they are made to
experience physical changes that they may not approve of. This is in line with butler’s theory of
evolution of tourism where he states that such occurrences are bound to happen in the
development stage. The local people therefore end up not benefitting which is also linked to
butler’s theory (Butler 2015; Muangasame 2014).
Conclusion
Tourism is one of the main sources of income for many countries particularly when
foreign tourists are involved. Based on the content discussed in this essay, it is evident that
Maldives attracts many foreign tourists with a reduced number of local tourists. Moreover, the
natural factors are the major aspects increasing the attractiveness of the region to tourists. This
implies that there are no secondary tourism attractions in the region. Tourism in Maldives also
lacks social and economic significance since the local people do not benefit from the tourism.
There is also an emergence of secondary tourism facilities which are the resorts. The findings
also indicate that Maldives is a resource Island. Since the region has focused on building many
resorts in the Island to accommodate tourists, the resorts are likely to restrain opportunities for
local financial advancement since there is no ample space left to build infrastructure or create
small businesses which could directly benefit from tourism in the region. This can also limit the
resources of the Islands if the development of resorts is not done in a practical way. The region

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may also face long term financial loses if the indigenous habitat of the Islands is misused. On
account of the Maldives, desalination and bottled water imports have had to substitute the
drained crisp water supplies, which can turn out to be highly costly. With this main findings, it is
evident that butler’s theory is applicable for Maldives region since the Maldives region exhibits
the characteristics of the stages of the tourism evolution as discussed in butler’s theory.

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