Maldives Uncovered: The Sunny Side Podcast
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Maldives Uncovered: The Sunny Side Podcast
Maldives Tourism, Adapting to Change and Innovation with Mark Eletr
In this Episode, Destination Future (NGO) Co-Founders Abdulla Nabeel and Nuaas Mohamed are joined by Mark Eletr, the General Manager of Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma, as we explore the unspoken topics of the island tourism.
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Welcome to Maldives. Uncovered the Sunnyside podcast by Destination Future. Diving into the heart of one of the world's most iconic travel destinations, you'll hear exclusive insights and expert opinions from top industry leaders sharing their knowledge on ever-evolving landscape of tourism in the Maldives. Whether you're a professional in the industry or simply passionate about travel, this podcast is your gateway to staying inspired and informed. Let's embark on this journey together as we explore the future of tourism in paradise.
Abdulla Nabeel:Very good day. Welcome to the Sunnyside podcast. Today with us we have yet another mark. I must tell our listeners that this is not intentional. Our first episode was with Mark as well, but today we have a different Mark, the General Manager of Holiday in Konduma. Mark, welcome to the podcast, thank you, good morning. Good morning. So, like our initial podcast episode, this podcast will be hosted by Destinations Futures co-founder Nuaz Mohammed and myself, and we will go through some questions and try to bring you some insights to the destination and from a perspective of Mark's property.
Abdulla Nabeel:So to start with, Mark, I've looked at your LinkedIn profile and tried to do a bit of research and it seems like you have been in more than one destination, some interesting destinations, including some places in Asia. So could you tell us a little bit about your journey in tourism and how you came to be in your current role in the Maldives?
Marl Eletr:Well, funnily enough, I started as a civil engineer working in Sydney and, you know, I finished my studies and I went on a trip and I fell into the beautiful life of resorts, starting off in Queensland, and I was really focused on island resorts and I managed many of the top island resorts in Australia. And then I was headhunted to join Anantara in Thailand and I spent two great years there and then I moved from Thailand to Vietnam and then I moved to the Middle East and all of that were challenging or remote or island resorts and through that time, through Asia Bali, vietnam, thailand development throughout Southeast Asia, thailand development throughout Southeast Asia and then I got called back to Australia to reopen the intercontinental Hayman Island Resort and that's where I joined IHG. And from that I went back to Vietnam to open a hotel in Phu Quoc. And then they said, well, mark, would you like to go to the Maldives? And I said, well, I've never done that before, so why not? And here I am.
Abdulla Nabeel:Incredible. So you have been in the Maldives, if I'm not mistaken, last four years. This is my third year your third year, all right, okay, that's still a long time, yeah. So coming to the Maldives from places like Thailand, vietnam or from the Middle East also, it's a very special or very different destination. What were your first impressions of the Maldives when you first landed or when you first began working here, and how have they evolved over time in the last three years?
Marl Eletr:Well, it's a very interesting destination because in many ways it felt so familiar for me because I'm an island specialist. I've managed many, many islands and been responsible throughout my career in hospitality, so you know the logistics, the climate, the environment, the tropical weather, the challenges of island resort conditions was all very much a first language for me. Culturally, maldives is a bit of a melting pot. You know it has. It has elements of Asia, south Asia, middle East, north Africa, west Africa. It's really a fusion of many different things. So it felt familiar but it also felt different.
Abdulla Nabeel:So now we will move into getting a little bit more about, from a destination point of view again, compared to some of the top tropical destinations in this region, in your view, what makes the Maldives stand out as a destination compared to other destinations, other tropical destinations that tourists would choose?
Marl Eletr:I think the Maldives has always been that aspirational destination. It's had a high price of entry, so it has always been considered as a top luxury destination. I think anybody that had planned a trip or dreamed about a trip to the Maldives they knew that it was going to be expensive and it was not accessible to the mainstream market. And I think it had that allure for people, even those who never felt that they could afford to come here. And it's a very polarizing experience in the Maldives because most people they won't spend any time in Malé. They'll go to the airport, they'll jump on a boat or a seaplane and then they land on their island resort and that's all they will see for the five, seven, 10 days, however long they're staying. So it's all about the beaches, it's all about the luxury. It's that iconic overwater or beach villa with a pool. It's luxury in every sense and it's a true getaway because it is so different. It's a true getaway because it is so different If you go to somewhere like Bali or Thailand, or even island resorts in Thailand like Phuket, koh Samui.
Marl Eletr:They're not islands, these islands, they're as big as Singapore, so you can walk out of your resort and you've got the street landscape. You've got the markets, you've got the street food. You've got the markets, you've got the street food, you've got the fishing communities. Maldives is about that singular resort experience and until recently that's what it has been and I think people knew exactly what they were going to get. Where it falls short is the weather. If you book a one-week holiday and it just happens to be a wet week, then that's where the guest experience can kind of deviate. But otherwise I think people they get what they're expecting and more.
Abdulla Nabeel:Very true. I think I'll agree with you on those points. Maldives is very unique and special. I think our geographical location and the way our islands are formed makes us unique. I'm not saying there aren't individual coral islands out there in other parts of the world, but Maldives definitely feels special in that sense. So, moving to sustainability Mark, in the Destination Future Summit we touched on this point very much and it became almost the headline of the summit. But the point of sustainability from our perspective is about sustainable development, sustainable use of our resources, natural resources, whether it is the beach, the reef, the ocean and the islands and the flora and fauna. So just to connect from a sustainability point of view, I know now international properties, there are standards around sustainability and there are certain expectation when it comes to KPIs from senior management as well. So I would like to ask you how is your resort or your IHG as an organisation, if you can share, incorporate sustainability into your day-to-day operation, and why is sustainability so important for the future of Maldives tourism?
Marl Eletr:Yeah, absolutely, it is the topic. And when we talk about sustainability within our business, we are also talking about the continuity of successful business into the future, not just taking a short-term. You know, pillage the environment and pillage the destination and then move on to something else. We want to build it up, we want to build up the community of our colleagues and their extended families, we want the resort to look and feel better, the island itself to be protected and to be healthy and growing as an ecosystem and we want the business to be sustainable for our stakeholders. In terms of Kanduma, we actually won the award within IHG's Southeast Asia Korea region, which is quite a large region of resorts in challenging and sensitive environments, and the award we won was, you know, looking forward to tomorrow, based on our sustainability practices.
Marl Eletr:So we don't fight with nature, we work with nature. We take the time to understand the heartbeat and the ecology and the seasonality of what the island faces. We make sure that we are not polluting. We make sure that we are reusing and minimizing um the the products and the resources and island itself to develop, uh, as as an ecology. I think you know you can. You can polish something up to the point where it's sanitized and sterile and then it won't survive. So we we look at the island as a and it is a natural island it's not a reclaimed island where the flora and the fauna have been evolving for thousands of years and we protect that and we showcase that to the guests.
Marl Eletr:So we're not, you know, stripping and raking and polishing everything we like to put the compost back into the gardens, where the new food compost machines that are the requirement in the Maldives is the right thing to mandate, and we harness that and we make sure that we reuse that and any surplus we give to communities in agriculture so they can fertilize their soils. We're working towards, uh, zero green waste leaving from the island, which is actually harder than it seems, because we've got well over a thousand coconut trees on the island, so you can imagine the waste that comes from that. So we've purchased a wood chipping machine that will turn that into compost that we can then put back into the gardens. But we also do all the other stuff that most island resorts do as well, such as the bottled waters and the zero plastics and the refillable amenities, and, you know, optimising laundry and minimising the use of chemicals, and you know optimizing laundry and and and minimizing the use of chemicals, and you know being responsible with our discharges and and consumption sustainability.
Abdulla Nabeel:When we discuss sustainability often you know people get confused or there's this misconception sustainability is, you know, not doing certain things, doing certain things. But for us, sustainability is taking this country to the next generation, sustaining the resources for the next generations. What are the key challenges that you see?
Marl Eletr:uh for the maldives in maintaining its position, uh as a leading uh destination look, I think we are at close to a tipping point in in as a destination and I acknowledge the fact that I've only been here for three years and there's many uh hoteliers that have been in the Maldives for substantially longer. But since COVID, a lot of the rules have been reset and are being rewritten, and what was working before COVID, what was possible before COVID, I don't think is the new normal and I hate using that word, but I think it's really important to differentiate what the Maldives was back then and what it's facing now. And I think, with the concept of sustainability, the concept of sustainability, we have to make sure that what makes Maldives special and successful is possible going forward. And if we're honest and if our stakeholders are, you know, having a voice and being listened to by the leaders of the country, then we should be able to work through some of these current problems.
Marl Eletr:Now we obviously see the challenges with the government and national debt and you know, I'm sure that's a function of decisions that were made in the past and I'm sure that the current government is very aware of what these challenges are and putting together good solutions. But you cannot continue to just bleed dry the resort operators to save the national debt crisis, because if it no longer becomes a viable investment for foreign businesses, then there will be a very significant problem in the reputation and the value proposition for the Maldives. And this, I think, is the big problem when we're talking about sustainability in the context of what that word actually means is that we have to be able to stay in business in order to protect and preserve and to showcase the best of this destination, and preserve and to showcase the best of this destination. So I sense some real risk and threat in the current climate.
Abdulla Nabeel:Absolutely. We can't agree with you more on these points you raised. There is this tendency of you know milk in the cow per se, you know milk in the tourism per se, you know milk in the tourism industry and take as much as possible. I mean, this is the largest industry, this is by far the highest GDP contributor. So there is a tendency that, okay, whenever there is a need to raise funds or raise money, okay, whenever there is a need to raise funds or raise money, uh, the first touch point is I, what can we get out of, what more can we get out of the tourists or the tourism industry? So we, uh, we hear you, we agree with you and uh, um, you know, we hope our listeners, uh, stakeholders, listen to this and really think through okay, is this, is this sustainable, the things that we do today for the benefit of today? So, moving into the next segment of the podcast, my colleague, the co-founder of Destination Future, Nuaz, is with us, so Noas will take you through the next segment on marketing and future outlook Noas.
Nuaas Mohamed :Thank you, nabil and Mark, once again. Yes, very warm welcome to our podcast session. Thank you.
Nuaas Mohamed :So, yes, I think we have just touched uh some very interesting uh key points, and there are like really good uh takeaways uh from what you have shared uh with us so far as a destination, I definitely agree that we are at a tipping point from what's happening now and, uh, we definitely need to uh look into these things. And with this, I must say, there comes a lot of efforts as an industry that we have to be doing. And this leads us to the segment of marketing and innovation. So, in terms of the different approaches that we apply for marketing the strategies, what are the things that you have found most effective in this challenging time, especially to attract tourists to your resort or to the destination?
Marl Eletr:Well, at Canderma we sit in that mid-tier category. We don't sit in the luxury space and we're also not sitting in the guest house space, so to a certain extent we're kind of sandwiched in the middle. In the middle, and when you're talking about marketing and particularly generating market awareness, you can never spend enough money. So you have to be smart and what we do is that we, to a certain extent, make the most from the natural flow of arrivals. So we closely monitor any trends of new source markets coming into Maldives, and that's then where we cast our vision.
Marl Eletr:I view Maldives as a brand. So let's take you know you've got Mercedes-Benz as a comparable. You've got everything from the Maybach S-Class. You know E-Class, c-class. You've got to understand what part you fit, but we're still within the brand of Maldives, within the brand of Maldives. So we focus our products and services into the markets that are coming, that are looking for something around, where we are priced. And we're very fortunate in that we're close to the airport, so we're a speedboat ride rather than a seaplane ride. I think if we were a three, four star category resort that was far reaching that required either another domestic flight or a seaplane flight. The price of entry is just getting too high, and I think that we're going to start seeing the narrative of Maldives changing, in that the luxury will be more isolated, more remote, focused, and then the mainstream resorts will prosper based on their proximity to Malé Airport.
Nuaas Mohamed :Now coming to different approaches. From a marketing perspective, another key point is how the current market is addressing the digital transformation, especially with everyone, really the marketing, and then also in terms of guest engagements.
Marl Eletr:Look, I think we do better than most resorts in terms of the capture of the direct bookings and the digital and the online space. And the online space and coming out of asia and australia, where digital really is the driver in in the destinations, maldives still is very much a traditional um landscape. People book through their travel agent, who then books through a wholesaler or a DMC partner and they've got those you know, static contract rates with the resorts and I would say the destination is probably 75% to 80% of arrivals are coming through those traditional segments. But what we've seen, and I think we're going to continue to see this shift is in consumer behaviour.
Marl Eletr:I mean the news this year with FTI, with FTI was the biggest wholesale partner in the German speaking segment and they went broke. You know, they became insolvent. I mean that was unimaginable some years ago and they were so hard to get into these programs. And then overnight we see that they have a credit crisis and they've shut down. They have a credit crisis and they've shut down and that was one of the last and most traditional markets that booked through the brochure and the neighborhood travel agent and what have you.
Marl Eletr:And I think, because Maldives has a lot of ground handling, and when I say ground handling I mean there's the third party seaplanes, there's the domestic flights, there's all of that logistic which your casual book direct through IHGcom or any number of the OTAs and you can book instantaneously, you can get good offers, You're immediately connected with the resort team and we handle all of the transfers from the airport 24-7. The market will learn that and as people continue to return to the Maldives, they will learn that and the word will get that. And as people continue to return to the Maldives, they will learn that and the word will get out, and I think you'll start seeing a lot more volume coming through digital channels.
Nuaas Mohamed :And when we look into various different people how they have been doing it, we can see how much effort has been put onto the digital front sharing information, digital assets, videos and all those things, and also making sure that whatever that is required for the guests to know who are coming to the destination, it's available handy right. Correct. And this actually.
Marl Eletr:Out of India and China, where it's the growing middle class that is driving the volume.
Nuaas Mohamed :Absolutely.
Marl Eletr:These are the young, tech savvy travelers and they will use their Agotas and their bookingcoms and Ctrip to book direct because they know that they can get a great deal.
Nuaas Mohamed :Right, right, can get a great deal right, right and and also, uh, with this, uh, there's another element, uh that really connects the digital part that is uh in the resort, for example, uh, what are the things that is being done, for example, like, for example, uh, there are resorts or there are like companies uh that have uh adopted innovative uh ways to enhance the guest experience through digital connections and things? Is there anything that you have actually done, let's say, with innovative experiences, or even the offers that is available in the resort can be easily available to the guest to see, and this somehow elevates the guest experience.
Marl Eletr:Well, we use an app called HandyGo and that has really helped us connect with the guests in a very efficient way. Now Kanduma has 150 rooms plus. We are not a small boutique luxury hotel. I think it's more relevant to a larger scale product to be able to communicate easily and seamlessly with guests in real time. Now we chose an app that was more interactive and because it has automated language translation, so even if we don't have a Russian speaker, our Russian guests can communicate with us in their mother tongue and we can communicate back with them in real time, versus using chat functions.
Marl Eletr:It also allows us to broadcast communications. Now that could be an emergency issue, or it could be a happy hour or a special offer and what I find. If you can speed up the communication, then you can be a lot more agile with your products and services. So if suddenly we get the garden team have have just harvested some great fresh coconuts, we can broadcast out to the guests that the coconut bar is open and there's complimentary coconuts for the first 30 guests who turn up. That's a fun factor and that's something that's just simply not possible without technology like that.
Nuaas Mohamed :Sure. And before we just move on, I'm still very interested about the app.
Marl Eletr:I'm still very interested about the app and this app that you mentioned, handygo. People who have this downloaded already let's say, members of IAG they don't have to come and solutions out there that are very comprehensive but they're very heavy and they're very expensive. We have, obviously, our own guest database and we have our property management system and that is first and foremost, foremost, our secure data store. We don't go storing guest data in Handigo. Handigo is a mechanism to enhance the guest experience when they are here and we made this conscious choice versus other solutions that want to basically capture the guest data and we saw some real risk in that. So this is a communication tool and we use other solutions and we understand that IHG is working on more comprehensive internal apps for these very reasons, because data protection and data privacy is absolutely mission critical. We've seen some other groups and other businesses where guest data has been compromised compromised and it is a massively unacceptable risk to the business. So we don't want a third party app to be storing guest data.
Nuaas Mohamed :All right, so from here we will just quickly go through what the future is holding for us. Obviously, it's very challenging time and there are various different things that we need to look into and always keep continuously doing these things. One of the key thing that always keeps coming up, especially in a destination like Molis, is about the climate right, and obviously this is something that we cannot avoid at all being in the tourism industry. As an industry, addressing these potential impacts of climate change like what are the things you think MOLIS, as a destination, should be really looking into?
Marl Eletr:Well, here's where things get really quite challenging for resort operators, and I don't want to be critical because I'm not fully aware of the challenges that these government departments are facing. But I think there needs to be a level playing field across the whole country about how we approach climate change. Now we're such a small footprint. There's nothing that we do or can do that will change the climate around us, but in any storm you can adjust your sails. Now I would say one of the biggest problems that we're facing in the Maldives is erosion control, the government departments that we have to work with. Again, I don't want to embarrass people, but they have to hold local islands and resorts by the same standard. We're seeing reclamations that are occurring in front of our very eyes and again, I understand the nation needs to grow and build and there has to be ways to do it sustainably, but we're killing fisheries, we're killing dive sites and reefs, we're killing coral with sedimentation and pollution.
Marl Eletr:Local islands seem to have a free reign to do whatever they want building rock walls and dredging and putting bulldozers in the water and doing whatever they do when they're getting permission somehow to do it. If a resort wants to pump sand to protect the beach or to protect the villas or to build a rock wall, we have to go through endless EIA investigations and public consultations and if there's any resistance to that, the answer becomes no. There's been recent rulings that resorts now have to go and get approval from the EPA every single time they want to pump sand. A lot of this is is coming from complaints from the, from the general public in local islands, whereas I think resort islands should be allowed to protect themselves from these threats. And with the sea conditions and the reclamations and and the dredging and everything, things are changing and resort islands are being eroded and they're not being allowed to protect themselves.
Marl Eletr:So I think we need transparency, we need a level playing field and if we want the beauty of the destination to prevail into the future, then we all need to come to the table and agree on some rules that make sense for everybody, including local islands. You know, if anybody has been past local islands today, you will see 10 and 12-storey buildings being built Right. Whatever happened to the rule about nothing taller than a coconut tree? Because that doesn't exist anymore. We're seeing guest houses guest houses with 100 plus rooms. How is that possible? And they're having the unfair market protections. Now that they get a lower GST, they get lower green tax. That they get a lower GST, they get lower green tax, they get lower amounts to pay monthly in conversions, whereas resorts, even the smaller resorts, they're at the point I would say that some smaller resorts will be looking at closing if all of these rules keep piling on.
Nuaas Mohamed :Right, mark, I think, looking at the question in hand, obviously you have shared a lot of things that is related to the erosion and the challenges that is happening with the buildings and so on. So when we are talking about, let's say, the climate change, basically the current challenges that we are having, erosion definitely is one of the big things that everybody is facing, a lot of challenges, and I definitely agree with you that, as a result, you should be definitely able to have more flexible ways, how to protect your own beach and so on. The other things that really comes to my mind is, uh, for example, with the global warming and, uh, the coral bleaching and all those uh sort of things. Do you see uh challenges? Uh to, for example, dive sites that your guests are frequently visiting, or the house three, for example? Uh, these are somehow concerns that can be related to climate change and things that we should be addressing.
Marl Eletr:Look, absolutely. I mean, we've just seen a very significant bleaching episode six months ago where, looking out amongst our reef systems, you could see these glowing white pieces of coral and that happened in the space of a few weeks and that's a function of the UV intensity and the sea temperatures and the health of the coral. But sedimentation is is one of the factors is that the reef systems are already distressed. Now, if we're going to do our part to combat climate change, we do need to look at um emissions, we need to look at pollution. We need to look at pollution. We need to look at, you know, the big factor in the Maldives is power generation and every resort can do everything possible around plastics and, you know, bottling water, et cetera, diesel power generators, because the guests expect restaurants and bars and lighting and air conditioning, which all is is is very, very power hungry.
Marl Eletr:There needs to be a national solution on on green energy production. We need to all jump in together and make solar more affordable. We need to be experimenting with other technologies like wave and wind and tidal energy, where it makes sense and where it's possible. We can't just keep burning diesel to run the country, because that's not doing our part, but there is no other accessible solutions and I think this is where the government has to step up and say right, we will be the organiser. We will create national schemes where zero interest loans are available to go solar. We will clear the way to put floating solar farms where a national grid becomes possible. But everybody's doing their own thing and if we work collectively then I think we'll get better solutions.
Nuaas Mohamed :Right, thank you, mark.
Nuaas Mohamed :All right, thank you, mark. Definitely. These are some very interesting points, especially about the clean energy and making these available at a national level, or have plants do something that benefits everyone. This can definitely include the local islands as well, not necessarily on the resort itself. And with this, definitely there's another interesting thing that we'll be looking into the future trends.
Nuaas Mohamed :When we talk about more and more guests that are traveling to the Disney not even to the Maldives, but globally when people are traveling, they are looking into subjects like sustainability right, they really want to spend their dollars more purposefully. So, looking into these things, there are definitely a lot of things in play. When we are talking about the future of tourism in the mall is looking at, let's say, possible next five to ten years. What are the trends, uh, that you foresee that will shape the future of the tourism, whether it's in terms of, let's say, segments, for example, uh, we had a lot of honeymooners and couples. Now it has been obviously a lot of families. People are traveling for various different reasons wellness, sustainability and so on. What are the things that you foresee that will be really shaping the future of Maldives for the next five to ten years, for example?
Marl Eletr:I think in terms of the destination evolution, it is now a mature market. It's a mature destination as it's been up front now for 50 years and if you look at other destinations that have shifted from that first 50 years until the next 50 years, there's some real shift in the demographics of people coming to the Maldives. So everyone's now talking about the family market coming to Maldives. That was not historically mainstream. It was the adventurers who came looking for the Roberts and Crusoe experience out of Italy and Europe and that evolved into the luxury couples, the wellness traveler, the experiential traveler, the honeymooners, the romantic getaways, the special events, et cetera, of Asia, middle East, south Asia, india, eastern Europe, cis countries. They never travelled here before en masse and now these are the top markets for the destination.
Marl Eletr:So we're going to start seeing families, the small nuclear family as well as the multiple generational family groups that are coming and that means that the destination has to evolve not only in its accommodation offering but its experience offerings. We have to cater to the kids, we have to cater to the more mature or the mobility impaired or, you know, the grandparent who's in a wheelchair or can't walk up and down a beach or a set of stairs. We have to evolve to accommodate a much more diverse demographic of arrival. And then there's, you know, there's the needs in terms of tastes and preferences, and food and religious needs, and all those language capabilities on property have to be assisted as well. So I think it's going to become a much more diverse, wider demographic, coming to the Maldives with expectations that we haven't really faced before.
Nuaas Mohamed :Looking at the current market trend itself, these are some of the things that we have been observing already, I think. Looking at families, for example, more and more families traveling to the Maldives. There are people who are really focusing on to these segments. Also, a lot of like celebrations happening. It could be like wedding ceremonies or even birthday celebrations small group of friends traveling together. Do you see these things happening at Kanduma?
Marl Eletr:Absolutely All of that and more. Weddings, remarriages, proposals, second honeymoons, babymo, grandparents, retirements, um, the wedding market is something that I think can really open up. But the rules in the maldives need to change to actually allow official um weddings to to be recorded and registered and then people don't have to go back home and repeat that process. So that'll open up a lot of the market, particularly for the bigger resorts that can handle the Indian weddings where you can have 200, 300, 400 guests, and there are people in those markets with the funds to afford it to do something that is just completely wow factor.
Nuaas Mohamed :All right that sums up the segments that I'll be covering for now and let me hand over back to Nabil, who will go through the leadership and community and just a quick wrap up on today's podcast session. All right, Nabil, over to you this podcast session.
Abdulla Nabeel:All right, Nabil, over to you Very insightful discussions and topics in the past segment as well. Just before I move to the last part of the podcast, which is leadership, and then we close the podcast, I want to touch on one point that Mark highlighted about the disconnect between the development standards in resorts versus the guest houses. Where the resorts have certain expectations that buildings cannot go above the tree line of 15 meters or 12 meters. In the local islands, guest houses are built up to 12 meters, 12 stories, 15 stories and more up to 200 rooms in certain areas. I think the real issue if I have to make a statement here, the real issue is that there is a disconnect between the central, the regulations in development on local and aborted islands and that of private resorts.
Abdulla Nabeel:Once you lease a private island for resort development, there is a certain set of regulations that govern those private island developments, whereas when it is when a hotel or a guest house is developed on a local island in a piece of land that belongs to a private uh person, the, the regulation is totally separate, the regulation that falls. So we uh to. To make this work, to bring this to a more sustainable development model, we need to connect these regulations, speak to each other, government departments and leaders. They need to talk to each other. They need to say, hey, this is the national vision, and then make a plan and go implement the plan across all industries and all islands and all areas. So that's something I just wanted to add for our listeners, just to connect what we mean when it comes to these developments.
Marl Eletr:We've heard that rhetoric, but we actually haven't seen it in action. We haven't seen proper consultation.
Abdulla Nabeel:Absolutely absolutely.
Marl Eletr:And this is where I worry, and one of the government special advisers said in front of the industry about the golden goose, and I think that that can really happen in front of us if we continue to make bad decisions and not involve everybody at a Maldives destination or brand level, because the growth of the guest houses and the completely uncontrolled nature of the experiences on those islands, with all of the social problems that are going to come you know we're already seeing the very anti-social behaviours and problems that other destinations are facing coming into these local islands and it's going to get worse and then people will start, you know, thinking poorly of of the Maldives.
Marl Eletr:They won't differentiate because they'll see these images online, and then they'll and it won't, it won't add up or correlate to their vision, their aspirational vision for the destination, and then they'll think, oh my god, it's, it's, it's gone. And you know, you can look at what's happening in bali as an example of what our what, what is, is facing in in the future of the moldives if we don't get things right from this point on.
Abdulla Nabeel:I think this is a good point to change the course on leadership. I think all this thing falls under the leadership right, Whether it is the tourism advisors to the presidents and the politicians, or the president, whoever is elected every five years.
Abdulla Nabeel:Those leaders need to stand up for their vision, for the destination, for the nation, for the country right. So I think in hospitality we learn a lot about leadership. So I will just move to the next topic. Mark in your experience what leadership lessons you have learned that could benefit the others in the tourism industry?
Marl Eletr:Well, if I start from from I guess a personal you know mantra. As an island GM and I've pretty much always been an island operator and GM I approach my responsibility as it's my lifestyle. I live here, this is my home, this is my responsibility. It's not a job, the success versus failure of island GMs they're usually failing. If they fail, they are usually failing because of what happens after hours, not necessarily about their approach to their work. So you have to approach your role as a custodian. You are the island chief, you are the matriarch or the patriarch of the island and you have a community of people that you are responsible for 24-7, their personal professional growth, their safety, their health, their enjoyment, their enjoyment. So you have to take a 360 degree approach to your work and your time when you're in this responsibility. So leadership is a never on, never off mentality and you have to indoctrinate that culture amongst the managers and the supervisors all the way down to the grassroots staff. I say good morning and hello to everybody, anybody that I pass, whether it's a guest, a staff member, a contractor, a gardener, all the way to executive committee, and they respond in kind and a guest does not then have to ask for help. It's always there. A guest will always get a morning, a welcome, whether it's the Bangladeshi gardener, who really doesn't speak any other language other than hello, good morning, et cetera really doesn't speak any other language other than hello, good morning, etc. So leadership is it's an ever present approach, and if you lead through culture then you'll have a successful outcome. And I think you know when we talk about community and leadership.
Marl Eletr:As an expat, you know I have a privileged position, but I never take that for granted.
Marl Eletr:My first responsibility is to develop local talent and having worked in a country like Thailand and I can see also this happening in Vietnam is that as an expat, as a foreigner, it's getting very difficult to get a job as a GM in Thailand.
Marl Eletr:Now the localization of the workforce has been really going and you've got some great talent there that have been developed by international operators that are now stepping in as GM, and I've got a bunch of people that I've mentored and developed in other countries that are all now stepping into roles. And we just had the fabulous good news story here from Kanduma that we have been developing a great local leader, shahid Hussain, who has now taken over one of our IHG's newest resorts as the vineignette Noku, and he's just heading up there this week as the new GM and he's a local and that makes me incredibly proud. You know, ultimately I'll do myself out of a job, but I'm okay with that because that's my responsibility and people see that, the community sees that, the staff sees that and you know I want everybody to want my job.
Abdulla Nabeel:What advice would you give to the aspiring leaders, even the young people in the multis, who are looking to join or who have made a decision whether this is a good industry or not to join?
Marl Eletr:Be authentic, be yourself. Focus on continuous improvement, not perfection, because perfection is just impossible. Be open, be honest, be teachable whether it's from your staff or your management, and enjoy what you do. Find a way to bring joy to others and to yourself in doing what you do. Find a way to bring joy to others and to yourself in doing what you do, and you'll naturally be good at it and naturally be successful.
Abdulla Nabeel:We are getting closer to the last part of the podcast, so, in closing, we will make it fun. So I would like to ask is there any particular memorable moment or experience in the last three years that you have had while in Kandooma or interacting with others?
Marl Eletr:Oh wow, you know, I mean again, I've been very fortunate to have travelled to some of our beautiful hotels and in each of those times I've had, you know, amazing service experiences. And you know I wish I could name them all, but you know, gili Lankan Fushi was just such a breathtaking, life-changing experience. Intercontinental Mum and a Gal was just such a wow factor, luxury Six Senses. Kanahora, komo Kokua, komo Malifushi.
Marl Eletr:There's a few more that I want to get to and I'm sure I'll get there, but you know, if I bring it close to home, at Kanduma, I'm a scuba diver, so you know I've come face to face with an oceanic manta that came up to me on a dive because it was trapped in a ghost net and myself and the dive instructor Tomoko, tiny little Japanese girl, we spent and it's all on video and it's on my Instagram where we were basically wrangling this four and a half metre oceanic manta and cutting it free from this net that was trailing for maybe 20 metres, 30 metres behind it for months. This thing had to endure that and we cut it free and we got it on video in such a way that we could share that video with the Manta Trust and they searched through from the patterns of the spots on the belly, that this was an undocumented animal and had never been recorded before, and we got to name it. So we called it Kanduma. So there's this huge oceanic manta ray swimming out there somewhere in the Indian Ocean called Kanduma, somewhere in the Indian Ocean called Kanduma.
Marl Eletr:And again, just at the end of a dive behind Kanduma, I came face to face with a four metre great hammerhead. It really came like within two metres of me, face to face, had a look at me and then swam by. I mean life changing, breathtaking experiences, and these are things that anybody can experience in the Maldives if they just jump into these amazing environments and, you know, harmonize with the rhythm and the spirit of the place. All of this will just happen with you and around you.
Abdulla Nabeel:Truly incredible experiences shared. For a moment, I felt like I was snuggling with you. Look the purpose of this podcast is also to bring these sort of stories into one place for our young listeners and tourists and aspiring locals or locals and experts who would like to work in the industry, come to the Maldives or visit Maldives. These are the stories we want to share. As marketers, you know, this gets us out of bed. This is the story we want to keep on sharing about how incredible the Maldives is. So thank you, mark.
Marl Eletr:Before we close, any final thoughts or any final pointers that you would like to add, Look, I think what will really help the destination to grow is to continue to encourage the local talent to enter the industry, and one of the transitional things that I think we will see, and historically, maybe the older generation of Maldivians have been reluctant to encourage the next generation to join the industry, but I hope that we will continue to see that changing, because the talent of the local population is immense and, to be honest, travellers want to come and meet locals, and who is better to share local culture and stories than Maldivians? So we should be encouraging the best and the brightest to be coming into this industry and having an incredible future and not seeing it as you know. I think some of the older generations don't see it as a good option for their kids and I hope that that moves towards bringing more talent, local talent, into the business, and whatever we can do to do that, I'm keen to do.
Abdulla Nabeel:Thank you, mark, thank you for your time to do. Thank you, mark, thank you for your time, and we hope our listeners will will take in uh whatever they like to take, or the full story in truly incredible experiences and stories shared and very important topics uh touched and uh I think um again, you know the purpose of destination future is to bring people suggest yourself, mark, and many other leaders in the industry to socialize these topics, these stories, these ideas. So one it is preserved and it is accessible to people who really need these resources and share this information with others. So thank you very much for joining with us today, mark. Thank you, my pleasure.
Nuaas Mohamed :Thank you, mark, once again and it was really great to have you with us on the Sunnyside podcast. Very interesting topics we have covered, and thanks for what you're doing with this forum podcast. Very interesting topics we have covered, as Nathalie mentioned.
Marl Eletr:And thanks for what you're doing with this forum. I believe it's incredibly important and, as it gains momentum, I think we can really no-transcript.
Speaker 3:The Sunnyside podcast by Destination Future. We hope today's episode has sparked new ideas and given you valuable insights into the Maldives as a leading travel destination. Don't forget to subscribe, stay connected with our community and be part of the conversation with our community and be part of the conversation Until next time. Keep exploring and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the world of tourism.
