No more spas in the Maldives!

A sad and very bad time for the Maldives, for all us tourists that like visiting the Maldives and for the whole spa industry. 

 

 

 

Chatting away with my good old Danish friend Ulrik Nielsen whos a pilot and flights operations manager for the Maldivian  Air Taxi

http://www.maldivianairtaxi.com

 

”Ulrik recently bacame an actor as well, doing his usual work in the German film ”The dream Hotel Maldives” / Das Traumhotel Malediven

http://www.amazon.de/Das-Traumhotel-Malediven-Christian-Kohlund/dp/B004OGDVKM/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1325329579&sr=1-1-spell ”

 

We met about 8 years ago when I worked as a spa manager in the Maldives. He keeps me updated every now and then about what’s going on in his life and in the Maldives.

 

Unfortunately things are not looking good at the moment.

 

The Government has closed all spas in the Maldives!

Islamic fundamentalists think that the spas are equal to brothels.

 

Unless you like to stay all day in the water and on the beach…don’t go there! You might not be used to go to spas at home, but when you are in the Maldives you go for two reasons; 1^st  being the amazing spas and top of the range treatments and 2^nd because there’s not much else to do.

 

It’s a catastrophe for the resorts that rely on the big revenue percentage that the spas bring in.

 

 

 

BBC sums it up like this:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16365254

Tourism operators in the Maldives have expressed concern over a government order to shut down all spas and health centres in resorts.

 

The ban followed allegations by an opposition Islamist party that spas were being used for prostitution.

 

Tourism is a key foreign exchange earner for the Maldives.

 

The islands are a popular destination for wealthy honeymooners and celebrities where luxury rooms can cost up to $12,000 (£7,748) a day.

 

The Maldives Association of Tourism Industry said the ban would harm the economy. It has appealed for a resolution of the issue.

 

The tourism ministry on Thursday instructed all resort hotels across the hundreds of islands that make up the Maldives to shut down spas and health centres offering beauty treatments and massages with immediate effect.

 

Last week the opposition Adhaalath party, a conservative religious movement, staged a protest in the capital Male against such spas, arguing that they were being used as brothels.

 

“An Islamic party has been agitating against spas hoping to embarrass the government,” a senior government figure told the AFP news agency.

 

So far this year the Indian Ocean country has received more than 850,000 tourists attracted to its turquoise blue lagoons and spectacular corals with multi-coloured fish.

 

Last week President Mohamed Nasheed called for a “tolerant” form of Islam in the country amid growing concern about the influence of hardline Islamic parties.

 

Industry sources say that they expect the government eventually to revoke the decision on spas because of the huge revenue earned from the business.

And the shit gets worse:

Maldives can’t handle their rubbish!

The government of the Maldives has temporarily banned the depositing of rubbish from its hotels onto an island used almost entirely as a garbage dump.

Thilafushi, an artificial island 7km (four miles) from the capital, is nicknamed Rubbish Island.

The accumulation of garbage there has become so acute that it has begun spilling into its lagoon.

An emergency clearing operation has begun to remove “hills of rubbish” mostly collected from luxury hotels.

Rubbish Island is a far cry from the Maldives’ famous turquoise waters and white sands.

Those who have been there describe vast piles of rubbish and perpetual smog and smoke.

The routine is for mainly Bangladeshi workers to sift through the trash to look for materials their employers can sell.

Waste from the whole country is taken there to the island be buried, burnt or – for some plastic and metal – recycled.

Much of the rubbish comes from the luxury resorts which, reportedly, do not follow the rules on crushing their waste.

The boats that bring rubbish to Thilafushi have recently started dumping it into the lagoon, many boatmen impatient at having to wait up to seven hours to unload it.

The head of the Maldives’ Environment Protection Agency, Ibrahim Naeem, says that delays in dealing with rubbish are caused by technical problems with the unloading of trucks.

He stressed that Thilafushi was not full up and that work was under way to improve waste disposal and ban open incineration.

Mr Naeem said the jetty for rubbish from outlying islands will be closed until the lagoon is cleaned up – although a separate quay for the capital, Male, remains open.

Criticising the waste management on Thilafushi, local environmental campaigner Ahmed Ikram said that years of promises to create a biofuel facility on the island to generate more power had come to nothing.

Mr Ikram’s Bluepeace organisation has highlighted the problem of toxins from poisonous waste seeping into the sea.

Thilafushi was reclaimed from a coral reef 20 years ago. There are other industries there, including boat repairers.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16365254