The International Maldives Travel Market Private Limited (IMTM) has launched the Sustainable Tourism Forum (STF) 2022 at the Manhattan Business Hotel in Male’ City.
STF 2022 is a platform that unites stakeholders of the tourism sector and encourages them to engage in a multi-sector dialogue on issues pertaining to the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of tourism in the Maldives. This year, IMTM celebrates the forum’s return for its third edition after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The opening ceremony was attended by many special invitees and esteemed guests from the government, official partners of STF 2022, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), associations, resorts, guesthouses, dive centers, and students.
Delivering the opening remarks, Managing Director of IMTM Shiuna Khalid shared the vision and passion with which IMTM began the initiative to foster sustainable tourism in the Maldives. She said the tourism industry is one of the biggest contributors to the Maldivian economy and makes up 20% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). She added that this year’s forum explores the theme What is Sustainable Tourism? Interpretations and Discourses of Sustainable Tourism in the Maldives, which aims to determine how different establishments define sustainability and what it means, in hopes to create a list of criteria for sustainability in the Maldivian context that the tourism industry can use as a reference.
Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) stated that STF 2022 offers a timely contribution for the tourism industry to pause, reflect and rethink the way they have been doing work and how they may improve and implement sustainable practices. The forum’s focus is to foster multi-sector dialogue on issues of sustainability. It brings together the industry stakeholders to discuss the topic of sustainability in length, with the vision of making a mark in the industry, a clearly defined criteria for sustainable tourism establishments, and a policy paper published early next year based on the forum’s findings and recommendations. This policy paper aims to help the government get more insight into the industry and complement their efforts in the hopes of assisting them in making changes on a policy level, including the introduction of a Sustainable Tourism Policy.