Tourism for Tomorriw: Train 5,000 Young Maldivians and Build 500 Rooms in Addu

The Maldives has long depended on tourism as the engine of its economy, with the sector contributing over 30 % of GDP and driving foreign exchange earnings and jobs nationwide. In 2025, the archipelago welcomed over 2.2 million visitors, underscoring the industry’s continued comeback and growth.

Yet, despite this success, one persistent challenge remains: building a skilled Maldivian tourism workforce and spreading tourism investments and opportunities beyond Malé and the main resort clusters. That’s where a compelling two‑part reform proposal that I put forward can come into play — one that could reshape the tourism landscape over the next decade and give young Maldivians a path to stable careers while also catalysing economic activity in the southernmost area, Addu City.

Proposal (1): Train the Future: Apprenticeships Turn “Maldivian Resort Staff” into Career Professionals:

Imagine this: All 175 resorts in the country, each take on six apprentices every year, offering a basic salary of USD 500 plus food, accommodation and structured training for a one year period 

Over five years, that’s roughly 5,000 apprentices - trained Maldivian tourism professionals with real on‑the‑job experience.

From this talent pool, each resort selects its top two students annually for vocational scholarships, financed by the resort, personally awarded by the President in a high‑profile ceremony. These aren’t academic degrees, but specialised vocational courses in hospitality operations — from culinary arts and guest services to dive management and resort technology.

This proposal to train more than 5,000 Maldivian tourism professionals without spending any state finance, aims to tackle two enormous gaps at once:

* The tourism industry’s reliance on foreign labour for entry positions despite strong local demand for jobs; and

* The lack of formal, hands‑on career pathways for young Maldivians into well‑paid roles — not just casual resort work.

Proposal (2): Tthere’s a pressing need to decentralise tourism development and give regions like Addu City their moment to thrive. Addu, already emerging as a branded destination under the slogan “Addu: Beyond the Equator”, has been actively positioning itself in global markets since late 2024 without much result.

This second part of this proposal suggests allocating ten prime tourism plots in Addu for development into city hotels with at least 50 rooms each — totalling 500 rooms. These land-parcels would be awarded to the country’s top ten resort operators such as Universal, Villa, etc., incentivised with rent‑free land for 24 months, and duty exemptions on construction materials for the building of these city hotels.

In doing so, the policy would generate construction jobs and local supplier demand and permanent tourism employment tied to hotel operations in Addu. This would be a huge step towards the government’s broader goal of adding thousands of tourism beds in Addu.

With the existing Gan International Airport already improving connectivity and two established resort properties, Canareef and Shangri-la, in the city, and the addition of 500 prime rooms as in the above proposal, Addu can position itself as a vibrant tourism hub beyond Malé. Another benefit of this is that, by bringing top resort operators into the Addu hotel business, they would become stakeholders in the development of Addu tourism. 

Why This Matters — Real Impact, Not Just Rhetoric:

Tourism’s economic importance is unmistakable. In 2024 it generated over USD 5.4 billion for the Maldives, with resorts alone accounting for the bulk of that contribution. But this success also masks a vulnerability: too much output concentrated geographically near the capital city, and a Maldivian workforce with limited career progression.

The above two proposals offer solutions with measurable outcomes. Skill development at the above scale — creating at least 1,000 trained local workers every year over a period of five years,  who can rise into managerial ranks rather than remain in lower‑paid roles.

This would lay the foundation for regional tourism growth in areas such as Addu — taking the strain off central hubs by strategically developing outer atolls such as Addu City.

This is a very practical plan without any government budget, for economic diversification within the tourism industry, enabling boutique hotels and regional operators to thrive alongside traditional private‑island resorts.

Additionally, while tax incentives and rent breaks can accelerate development, they must be tied to job guarantees for locals and training benchmarks, or risk simply subsidising profit without broader benefit.

Finally, while Addu’s past projects such as Villingilli and Hankede projects have sometimes been hampered by bureaucratic delays and unmet expectations, a transparent timeline and clear public‑private partnership terms will be essential in implementing the above two proposals. 

This combined plan — training 5,000 young Maldivians and creating 500 hotel rooms in Addu — isn’t just a policy wish list. It’s a pragmatic blueprint that leverages existing strengths, addresses systemic labour gaps, and opens up regional economic opportunity. In a nation that depends on tourism for jobs, growth and stability, it’s an idea whose time has very likely come.