Visit Maldives partners with Gold Medal for UK marketing campaign
Visit Maldives Corporation (VMC) has launched a joint marketing campaign with UK tour operator Gold Medal to strengthen the Maldives’ position as a luxury destination for British travellers.
The campaign, which was signed on 29 May 2026, is currently running across the United Kingdom and will continue until 31 July 2026.
Through the partnership, VMC seeks to establish a high-value business-to-business sales pipeline by gaining direct access to specialist travel agents and retail networks across the UK.
The campaign is divided into two pillars. The first involves an immediate trade campaign focused on the Indian Ocean region. It includes full-page destination guides displayed in high-street travel stores, in-store window displays and targeted advertisements in travel trade publications.
The digital component includes dedicated landing pages, a coordinated social media campaign and targeted email communications distributed to thousands of UK travel agents. Destination training sessions are also being conducted for frontline call centre staff to support customer enquiries and improve the booking process.
The second pillar focuses on maintaining long-term visibility in the luxury travel market through a dedicated beaches and islands campaign. This includes annual brochure placements in selected travel stores, supported by a luxury travel microsite.
A multi-week booking rewards programme has also been introduced for specialist travel agents to encourage trade engagement and bookings. The programme is supported by digital sales toolkits and email campaigns focused on luxury travel.
The campaign is being implemented through a division of responsibilities between VMC and Gold Medal, supported by a one-to-one matched funding model.
Gold Medal is responsible for deploying campaign materials across print, digital and retail channels, managing travel agent engagement activities and monitoring performance data. VMC retains strategic oversight and provides final review and brand approval for all campaign materials to ensure consistency with the Maldives’ destination brand guidelines.
The campaign also places emphasis on measuring its performance. VMC and Gold Medal will monitor booking data throughout the campaign to calculate the cost per acquisition for luxury bookings. The data will be used to assess returns, support visitor arrivals and inform future market activity.
The initiative comes as the UK continues to rank among the Maldives’ leading tourism markets. According to Maldives Tourism Updates, the UK was the third-largest source market for the Maldives as of 4 June 2026, recording 80,881 arrivals and accounting for 8.7 per cent of total arrivals.
The level of demand from the UK for luxury, leisure and experience-based travel has provided the basis for the campaign, which is focused on converting market interest into bookings through trade and retail channels.
