Maldives Uncovered: The Sunny Side Podcast
This podcast is all about the Maldives as a tourism destination. You'll hear insights from top industry leaders and experts. Join our community to get inspired and gain the knowledge you need to reach your business or personal goals.
Maldives Uncovered: The Sunny Side Podcast
Paradise Expat: A Maldivian Hotelier's Global Journey
Ahmed Asim, a Maldivian hospitality professional, shares his journey from working in luxury resorts in the Maldives to becoming a General Manager at Anantara Rasananda in Thailand. With years of international experience, he offers unique insights on the value of global exposure for Maldivian tourism professionals and the future development of local talent in the industry.
• Started career at Soneva Fushi before working at several luxury Maldives resorts
• First international move was to Seychelles, then Thailand with Marriott International
• Returned to Maldives to work at W Maldives and St. Regis before moving back to Thailand
• Currently serves as General Manager at Anantara Rasananda in Koh Phangan
• Working internationally provided experience with MICE tourism, large events, and domestic markets
• Cultural adaptation and language barriers were initial challenges but not insurmountable
• Few Maldivians pursue international opportunities due to comfort zones and attractive local packages
• Believes international experience broadens perspective on hospitality fundamentals
• Advocates for developing more local talent through education and international exposure
• Encourages young Maldivians to pursue international opportunities despite initial challenges
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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.
Speaker 2:Today, in this episode, I am with a friend of mine whom I have known since a long time. His name is Ahmad Asim. Ahmad Asim is a passionate and hardworking professional with years of experience in his career. We met each other, I think, in 2005, when you were at Suneevo Fushi, and since then you have moved abroad and now work in Thailand. Asim, thank you for doing this. Thank you and welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Nabil. Thank you for inviting me. You're right, it's been a long time and it's great to catch up with you through this conversation.
Speaker 2:Great. Like I said, we've known each other since a long time and we kept in touch, although we went out and started a new life. So for our listeners tell us about your journey in the industry so far yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:So, as I mentioned, as you mentioned, rather, we we know each other from Soneva, but my journey to this industry somewhat typical but somewhat slightly different, I would say I grew up in Bayetol, you know, in Malos, a small island right in front of Soneva, fushi. So after I finished my studies, I had my brothers, a lot of people that I know, working in the hospitality industry. So it sort of felt like I was destined to get into this industry and I was given an opportunity to, through one of the programs, to pursue hospitality education with them and come back and work for them. So this is the very beginning of how I started the industry. I went to Malé, did some studies, came back and worked with Soneva for some time in different roles front of ease and eventually becoming a butler their signature Mr Friday position before leaving them and joining other hotels. I did also work for a few other hotels in the Maldives. I did some time in Tokopan, bodohiti, conrad, maldives. After that, I was given an opportunity to sort of leave the Maldives and explore what's outside.
Speaker 3:So in 2013, I got an opportunity to move abroad. I relocated to Thailand and joined Marriott International. I worked with one of my previous managers whom I've known from Cocoa Farm Bodohiti. So that was my move, one of the moves abroad. I worked as a front office duty manager and also became front office manager, did two wonderful years in Koh Samui, really enjoyed my experience. Right after that I moved back to the Maldives. I joined W Maldives as a front office manager before moving into St Regis as part of the pre-opening team. This was, in my career, one of the most amazing experiences. So I joined St Regis, right in the very beginning as an assistant director of rooms and throughout my time became the director of rooms. An amazing property, an excellent team. I still look back at my time there and look at how wonderful it was.
Speaker 3:After two years in saint regis, maldives, I wanted to come back to thailand. So I got an opportunity to return back to kosa moe for the previous hotel that I worked for as a director of room. So I I returned back to Thailand with my family, spent one and a half years working in Samui and through some connections, I also was offered an opportunity to join Maina International. This was a hotel located in Bangkok called Anantara Riverside, and this was nothing like what I have walked before. So my background was predominantly on luxury hotels, small boutique hotels, but Anantara Riverside presented me an opportunity with this. I think it's about 500, 400, a little over 400 rooms and massive FMV operation mice banquets. So I joined MINA in late 2019 at Anantara Riverside as a director of rooms.
Speaker 3:Right after I joined, I think the normal operation was there for a couple of months. Then came COVID, which was a challenging experience. You know all of us had different experiences during COVID closure of hotels, reopening but I spent that one or two years in Bangkok, initially walking through COVID trying to come up with ways to generate revenues for the hotels and so on. And after that period I was given an opportunity to take over as the hotel manager in Awani plus Riverside, which is right next to Anantara Riverside. Later on I also did resort manager back to Anantara Riverside before taking on my current role as the GM of Anantara Rasananda, located on the wonderful island of Koh Phangan. This was back in February 2024, so I've been in this role for a little over a year now.
Speaker 2:What a journey. Wow yeah, I nearly missed your return to the Maldives. In my mind, you went away and didn't come back, but now I remember yeah, you were in Germany.
Speaker 3:I did. Yeah, I did come back because I think that time in W and St Regis was wonderful. I worked with some of our colleagues that we know Anil and Iman.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, yeah yeah, incredible story and an amazing journey. You know I love. Uh, I mean you know nothing in life, as they say, is is a straight line. You have definitely moved from one place to the other, different roles yeah, but um, I wanted to uh ask you know? You said you know, uh, your first move abroad was through one of your former managers who helped you set up a move to Thailand, right.
Speaker 1:So what was the motivation?
Speaker 2:behind? Were you looking for just to get more experience, or were you just fed up of what's going on and then the routine of Maldives, and wanted to go abroad? What was the motivation for this movie?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wouldn't say I was fed up, but I was always curious to learn how the hospitality industry operated outside of the Maldives, you know. I mean we have wonderful hotels, very luxury setup. My just to correct my initial one before Thailand I did a small three months in seashells. So from Conrad I moved to seashells initially to work for raffles, but I didn't really like that experience for different reasons, and then move to Thailand. So my initial thought process when I was first moving to Thailand was is this really going to be challenging? Is it going to work out? Because you haven't really worked outside of Maldives. The main motivation was I also wanted to drive my career, grow it, learn what Maldives industry would not perhaps be able to teach me in that sense. So I had no plans. I wanted to come to Thailand, experience, work and you know, if I can get experience two or three years and I go back to the Maldives and continue it, I was okay with it but it turned out. I loved working for Thailand and living in this country.
Speaker 2:Now, looking back at the eight wonderful years I've spent here, you know, for us living, also, growing up and living in small islands and beautiful islands, sometimes when we go abroad we definitely, I get overwhelmed, you know you're, with the traffic and the busy schedule of other countries when compared to our village or island life here which is rather slow-paced. So just on that what were some of the biggest challenges you faced while adopting to the new life overseas or working overseas, and how did you overcome those? Any examples you can share with us?
Speaker 3:yeah, great question. I was, and when I look back and think about this, it's always a scary step to take. You know, to leave your home country, people that you have known the language, the food and the culture, but my transition into, I would say, koh Samui in Thailand was was generally very, very easy. I would always think that you got to keep an open mind. You have to be patient with things. The initial ones will always be. It's obviously a cultural difference, is there?
Speaker 3:The work is different than what you would have experienced in the Maldives, and one thing that would also maybe play in the back of your head would be the language. You know, if you're living in the Maldives, you speak the local language. You know, if you're living in the Maldives, you speak the local language. You know what everybody is talking about. But if you're in a completely different countries, maybe, and you don't understand the language, it could perhaps be a bit challenging. And when I started working as duty managers in Thailand, generally you work with a lot of locals, so getting to know them and speaking to them in their language which I don't speak, thai but trying to understand some of the things that they were saying, could perhaps be difficult for people to start off with, but I didn't see that as a big issue. I was able to adapt very, very quickly. Yeah, I didn't see I wouldn't. I can't recall anything that would I would classify as a big challenge.
Speaker 2:You made it sound very easy. Of course, you make it sound very easy, and now that leads me to think why do you? Think more Moldavians, don't pursue or don't go and explore roles in overseas.
Speaker 3:This is something that I've also been thinking about, because during my time I met a few Maldivians, even in Samui, even in Bangkok, great guys that have moved, that have experienced different places, and I know some of colleagues that are working in the Middle East and different places. But you're right, if you look at the whole industry, the number of Maldivians taking a role abroad is very few. Maldivians taking a role abroad is very few. I would say that this is something that perhaps maybe need to change slightly, because if you could go out, get a couple of years of experience, that would help you when you come back to the Maldives to really grow in that you come back to the Maldives to really grow in that few reasons that I could think of. You know Maldives is an amazing destination. You, if you look at an industry, this would be a place where you get to experience some of the best services and luxury feelings that guests have. And if you're working in the home island, you know you're close to your family. You're walking in the home island, you know you're close to your family, you're close to your friends. So it's sort of a comfort zone and I can understand why you don't necessarily want to leave to go abroad like that.
Speaker 3:That's one, and the second thing I also think is in terms of opportunities, right. I also think is in terms of opportunities, right. There perhaps be people that are looking for opportunities to go abroad, that they don't get the right opportunity, and sometimes there can also be, you know, certain situations where, when you're offered a job outside, you will try to compare the package, the living arrangements, financial rewards of it and then you might feel like, okay, I should stay back in the Maldives, there, like there could be many reasons for it, but I would really tell our listeners that it is a good step to take. It's something that would give you a lot of different experiences. What do you think, nabil, what do you think is the reason why there isn't many people moving abroad?
Speaker 2:I think, like you mentioned, I think it's a sort of exposure to the world, I think you know, and also being comfortable with what we have, because you know, like you mentioned, the packages, the living, the standards, what we have in our industry in, in most part, are on the higher side compared to to other countries when you compare the similar roles in other countries, right, and there's this also exposure.
Speaker 2:When I mean exposure is this you know the cultural exposure that a lot of us cultural exposure that a lot of us, uh, you know most of us, maybe not the younger generation now we we grew up in in our villages and our islands with with not much exposure to the outside world, right. So we are very uh comfortable, uh with with what we know as is is the best. What we know is is is the best what we know is right. You know, um, we as children not maybe a lot of us will have opportunity to even travel anywhere, apart from you know one or two close by countries, right. So I think that exposure is one thing. The next thing is, uh is definitely the package.
Speaker 2:The third thing I think is you know, uh, not having a clear uh perspective or clear direction on a career path. Right, if, let's say, you know, from a young age, if someone is guided, okay, from an intern or front office to be guided as a front office manager, then to a general manager, if there's a clear direction given by a mentor, given by a leader, given by a parent, a teacher, then maybe we could encourage people to go. I think that lack of plan, that lack of direction is also one thing. So but for me I think, you know, as as the world evolves, I think it's so important for us, for everyone who has opportunity to go abroad for a while and see it from a different perspective and come back and you know and see how that can be, uh applied, uh on a positive way back to our country, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's what I think you mentioned, that for you it was not easy, not that difficult, to go and fit into this abroad, because you went to Thailand, came back again, they went to Seychelles, and so that leads to me thinking how has working in these different countries Seychelles, different parts of Thailand shaped your perspective in?
Speaker 3:the industry. Just to go back to your point, as you were saying, for people to go travel to really look at perception of how the industry looks. I remember my time in Soneva, my time in Conrad St Regis W really luxury, exceptional experiences. But when I started working in Samui in Thailand, similar sort of hotel, luxury hotel, but in a different setting. The clients are different. You know they're not on an island, they're on an island, but not a small island. They could go out of the resort. They would go and, you know, be part of cultural experiences and things like that, where you would be, your operation or things that you learn will be very different to that on a small luxury island in the Maldives. But my perception really changed when I went to Bangkok because you know the likes of mice banqueting, big Indian weddings of 500, 600 people. These are things that I was lucky enough to experience and be part of it.
Speaker 3:I'm sure in Maldives also there is to a certain extent these kind of things. Maldives also there is to a certain extent these kind of things. But it opens up things that you haven't really thought about before and gives you experiences. You learn a lot from how we operate hotels in different situations and because if your hotel is located on a city, you would also be looking at how you're going to attract your domestic market to come in, how you're going to attract your consumers to your F&B outlets to come from outside it's not only in-house guests, right? So you start to learn a lot of different strategies and a lot of different ways that you would look at the industry, which in Maldives, to a certain degree, I think is limited of stuff that you can learn in that aspect.
Speaker 3:So this was when I look at my perception of the hospitality industry. The fundamentals are the same. In Maldives you emphasize on luxury, on privacy, whereas in Thailand you'll be focusing a little bit more on the warmth, the hospitality and the local authenticity of the experiences. But everybody, at the end of the day, is looking for great, memorable experiences delivered in a different cultural context, experiences delivered in the different cultural contexts to each and every guest. So it really broadens the way you think about this industry and gives you a lot of experiences, in my view.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I think, what we have.
Speaker 2:as you know, before the session podcast started also we discussed what we have in the modems is just a very unique, you know, very niche kind of tourism, like you mentioned. You know, uh, mice tourism and many other segments of the market we simply do not get because, uh, the way our resorts are built, so a lot of uh staff or the industry professionals don't get to experience this firsthand, whether it is big weddings or big meetings. And and also you mentioned about on strategies or ways of bringing in outside guests to dine in your outlets, to increase revenue and not to be dependent on a captive audience like in the Maldives resort, where you can charge them anything and everything you want, right so I think those from an experience point of view, definitely we are missing out and that's why I always tell young people who want to go abroad, even for a year, go and, you know, work somewhere else and come back, you know yeah, yeah, you know, bill.
Speaker 3:Uh, before you go, I just for this podcast. I was also looking at some of your opinion ads, I would say on linkedin, right, uh, you've given some great and I came across this article where you're written about how we diversify our offerings in the Maldives. Where you mentioned about mice right, there's potential to perhaps look at this. I don't know if the infrastructure is right and not to bigger extent, but you know niche corporate retreats and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I strongly believe I'm sure industry broadly also know, believes that there should be many more reasons people should visit a destination, whether it is Maldives or wherever. It just cannot be to dive, to lay on the beach or to do. It should be for various reasons because there are various types of travelers, right, uh, and that's my, my context of you know, creating, I would say, when you're marketing destination, especially a destination, marketing at a national level, it should be creating enough reasons for people, uh, to to travel to the destination. You know it could be events, musicals, mice and the whole thing, right, so it's a very big, very passionate or very soft topic that is close to my heart, moving on, so you know what would you say to young Maldivians who are, you know, wants to build a career and maybe you know, thinking of going outside the Maldives?
Speaker 2:Any specific tips you want to share?
Speaker 3:I would say, you know, in simplest term, go for it. What I mean by it is that, whatever the fear factors that you might come across, like about our previous discussion, in terms of package and living and so on if you have the right hotel or the right resort or the right company that's offering you to come and walk, or the right resort or the right company that's offering you to come and walk, and even if you have to take a little bit of a pay cut, it's you know, if you can afford that. It is worth trying. It may not be easy to start with, but if you are passionate and you're driven and then you really want to learn this experience, it would be a great addition to anyone's cv and it would help you really in the future. So my thought would be don't get discouraged with the smaller details of things. You can always figure it out as you go along. But if you really have an opportunity to do that, I would really encourage and experience it. It'd be an excellent way to grow your career in the industry.
Speaker 2:Now we have come to the closing of this episode. Is there anything you would like to share with us about the future of tourism in the Maldives. I know you haven't lived here for a while now, but I'm sure you must be reading and watching from outside Anything you would like to share about the future of tourism. What's your perspective on the future of tourism here?
Speaker 3:perspective on the future of tourism here, absolutely. I mean, I follow the news, I listen to news from home. In terms of the future of the industry, I would say first, in my perspective, we have to also recognize what we have achieved as a destination. We touched, based on this, few times, and maldives is a destination. When I go back now also, it's really a truly mesmerizing experience. You know, there's not many places like that in the world and we have been able to grow a younger industry know, started in 1972 to now, with so many great hotels and many innovations, and what we have in the country is a remarkable achievement and I'm sure there is a very strong future for the industry in the Maldives. Having said that, I think the one that's a bit closer to my heart in terms of the industry would be when I was working there. And now also I hear the need to develop more local talent, need to develop more Maldivians to take on key roles in the hotel industry, and I've seen wonderful GMs in the Maldives. I've seen, you know, ceos and CEOs of companies in the Maldives tourism industry, which is great to see. But looking at a bigger picture, I do think that the development of local talents perhaps is still not there where we want it to be, and one of the things, in my view, is we need to look at this a little bit differently in terms of a master plan.
Speaker 3:One of the things I would touch base on will be the education in terms of hospitality education. I know you work for Maina as well and I'm not saying this because I am working for the company but when I was working in Bangkok, I met a few Maldivians who were studying there, because Maina has opened this hotel school called AIHM, asian Institute of Hospitality Management, in partnership with La Roche. So I get to meet a lot of Maldivians who came, sponsored by hotels minor hotels in Maldives to go through studies, you know, do degrees and go back and become managers and develop them. So it's wonderful to see that. I'm sure many other international companies and other companies are doing that as well.
Speaker 3:But it cannot only be up to the resorts. It also needs to be driven through as a public service. We need to develop our younger leaders now, give them the exposure that they need outside and develop more people to take on key roles there. That's something that I would I hope would be a key achievement for us in the future. And, lastly, I know we mentioned that we have made really great progress in the industry, but in order to go for the future, we also need to look at a long-term strategy that doesn't necessarily change that frequently, a long-term vision that's led by key leaders in the industry that have the vision to take us to the next level, and I'm sure we'll be able to do that.
Speaker 2:Uh, that that's my final thoughts on it now, uh, before we go, uh, before we close, I have one question. It's not a trick question, so as, as a model in uh living and working abroad, uh and living your life in in hotels, uh, on personal holiday, where would you go? Where would you go? You don't have to name names, but what is your ideal location to go on a holiday?
Speaker 3:You mean back to the Maldives or any destination?
Speaker 2:Any destination Any destination.
Speaker 3:You know, because I have family, I would have to go back to the Maldives and when I visit back to Maldives I don't get the same type of food, so when I go back I still like the short eats and these kind of things that you would experience. So Maldives is a destination, but overall I've been fortunate enough to go to some countries through war, through leisure. But one country I visited recently and I love to go back would be the united states because it's so big right. You'll get to experience so many different kind of things and I think in your sales time also, we're fortunate to go and experience many destinations, but yeah, us is a destination I would like to revisit.
Speaker 2:Very good, I was anyway looking for the answer that you.
Speaker 3:You miss home and you always want to come back, so you, you mentioned it there of course there's no, no, no better place than home my only problem is when I go back home, for you know a couple of days, uh, all I'm doing is just catching up for the lost time in terms of because my family will be preparing food or I'll be going and eating a lot of maldivian foods that I miss over time, right?
Speaker 2:absolutely, and, of course, being a kid once again on the island, going fishing, jumping on a jetty things like that right good times, good times. Thank you, asif. Thank you so much. Uh, thank you for coming on our podcast and sharing your experiences. Uh, thank you, we'll speak soon again thank you, thank you very much, nabil.
Speaker 3:Take care, bye, bye, bye, bye.
