Regulations on operating tourists guest houses released

28 December 2007
Report: Soodh

The regulation on operating tourist guest houses in Maldives has been released yesterday. In a meeting held at the Tourism Ministry yesterday, Minister of Tourism Dr. Shaugee released this regulation.

Speaking at the meeting, Dr. Shaugee said that the 3 regulations to be completed this year now had been completed with the release of this. He also said that this regulation deals with tourist guest houses opening in Male and Hulhumale and yet, there is no government policy to give permission to run guest houses in other inhabited islands of Maldives.

There are no significant differences between this regulation and the principles acted earlier as this regulation also says that tourist guest house investment should be a 100% Maldivian investment. The reason for this is to protect this industry for Maldivians, Dr. Shaugy said.

Speaking further about Maldives tourism, Dr. Shaugee assured that Villingili will be opened as a tourist resort next June or July.

Although some people say that only certain people share in MTDC, it is not right and 22,000 Maldivian are shareholders of MTDC, Minister said. He said that work on Addu atoll Herethere had been completed in such a short period of time only because of MTDC and the share holders of MTDC will soon get their dividends.

Senior officials of Tourism Ministry took part in this meeting.