Two New Resorts in the Maldives Under Atmosphere Hotels & Resorts Plan to Open Their Doors This Year
Monday 29th of March 2021
The Six properties of Atmosphere Hotels and Resorts immediately resumed operations with the Maldivian borders reopening to international travel in July 2020. Surprisingly, even though numerous travel restrictions were in place in the major source markets, new markets emerged as top volume generators to the Maldives; The most significant of them being the Indian market.
Witnessing a 105% YOY growth of the market to the destination compared to 2019, Founder & Managing Director, Atmosphere Hotels & Resorts, Salil Panigrahi informed that the festive season was considerably successful. As air travel bubble and newly introduced flights enabling swifter travel between the two countries came up, the market soared demand to the shores of Maldives across all customer segments.
“[Arrivals] has been seen across economic segments and buying capacities, right from the budget traveller seeking a relaxing time at entry-level resorts to the very nuanced and seasoned traveller. The latter category, including Bollywood celebrities, have been flocking to the destination, working both as a promoter of Maldives as a hot destination and inspiring and influencing the other traveller segments to put the Maldives on their wishlist,” Salil expalined.
Slowly, with occupancy surging to strong levels, the current occupancy rate has stabilized across the resort chain. Building on the progress, the hotel brand is currently planning to strengthen and position our uber-luxe brand, THE OZEN COLLECTION on a worldwide basis. They are also all set for expanding their portfolio with two new resorts preparing to open their doors in Q4 of this year in the Maldives - OBLU XPErience Ailafushi and OBLU SELECT Lobigili.
The 3-star OBLU XPErience Ailafushi will operate as a budget-friendly property, aiming towards attracting guests looking for value-added travel experiences. On the other hand, OBLU SELECT Lobigili is a contemporary 5-Star boutique resort, exclusively for couples, with a similar positioning and ‘Serenity Plan’ as its popular sister property OBLU SELECT Sangeli.
“In the new normal, there has been an increase in the average duration of stay of guests. We hope to attract high profile guests with the unique experience of working and living in paradise. Our long stay offers for extended stays and workcations at THE OZEN COLLECTION is soon to be introduced in all our markets,” Salil said.
A reputed visionary and hotelier par excellence, Salil has been driving the Atmosphere brand since 2013 as a resort chain focused on the leisure segment in the Indian Ocean region. He envisions expanding beyond Maldivian waters with their latest flagship, THE OZEN COLLECTION offering uber-luxe experiences with resounding success. Looking at the current pattern, he is hoping that a significant upswing in volumes will help achieve pre-pandemic numbers by late 2021 or early 2022.