By The Maldives has unveiled a bold new tourism strategy aimed at leveraging the global appeal of sports to attract more high-value travellers. The Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation (MMPRC) has inked sponsorship deals with two sporting powerhouses – the UK’s Liverpool Football Club (LFC) and India’s Mumbai Indians cricket team.
Unlike traditional sports tourism, the goal isn’t to host games locally, but to entice the clubs’ massive global fan bases to choose the Maldives as their next travel destination. MMPRC chairman Abdulla Ghiyas described the initiative as a collaboration between “premium brands,” noting Liverpool’s extensive reach with over 200 million followers and billions of online engagements.
The 3.5-year LFC deal, beginning in August, will showcase the Maldives through LED advertising at matches and across Liverpool’s digital channels. A fan competition offering a luxury trip to the Maldives has also been launched. Meanwhile, the Mumbai Indians campaign will tap into cricket’s vast popularity in India to target 200,000 Indian arrivals in 2025.
With over two million tourist arrivals in 2024 and aspirations to reach 2.2 million this year, Ghiyas said the focus is not just on numbers, but on increasing tourism revenue, targeting over US$5 billion in receipts.
Private resorts are joining the movement. Heritance Aarah Maldives, which sponsored Bologna FC in the UEFA Champions League last year, praised the new initiative. “These partnerships position the Maldives as more than just a honeymoon spot,” said Suresh Dissanayake, of the Adaaran Group.
The MMPRC plans to promote the collaborations at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai and through UK-wide billboards. Officials anticipate the LFC deal alone could attract hundreds of thousands of tourists and generate over US$200 million in revenue.
