Luxury hotels in Maldives seek differentiation in a saturated market

18 Jul 2018 2081 | World Travel News

The luxury market in the Maldives is at risk of being over-saturated, with hoteliers urging greater differentiation among resorts to better compete against competitors.

“The problem with luxury – not only in the Maldives – is that the difference between resorts is just the name on the door,” Sonu Shivdasani, founder and CEO of Six Senses Resorts & Spas, asserted in a recent interview with TTG Asia.

A bird’s-eye view of a resort in the Maldives

Shivdasani said many hoteliers who have built high-end resorts are suffering from their inability to differentiate against one other, apart from the one-island-one-resort concept which is “old news”.

“They are just paying bank loans, (tax) and the island lease rentals. They are not getting a return,” remarked Shivdasani, who launched his first resort, Soneva Fushi, in the Maldives in 1995.

“A lot of these luxury hotels are opening and are surprised that they are not getting the premium rates they had originally projected – because there is no real differentiation,” he added.

Confident he can create a new differentiator to stand apart from the competition, Shivdasani shared that a Soneva property with a concept that does not yet exist in the Maldives is in the works, slated for opening in 2020.

Other hoteliers such as Andrew Ashmore, chief commercial officer at Coco Collection Hotels & Resorts, agree. He said luxury hotels have expanded far too quickly, resulting in the same look and feel, while the “soul of the true Maldives has effectively or will be gone”.