Our latest DMC showcase is a dream incentive in the Maldives, created by Creative Travel. The DMC succeeded in transforming a traditional idyllic honeymoon and family destination into a world class incentive travel experience.

This project took over the entire Island of the Atmosphere Kanifushi for five nights for 182 guests of 25 nationalities. It took over two years of planning, engaged over 50 entertainers, movement of 6 tons of equipment & collateral, use of boats and sea-planes and so much more, all supervised and executed by just 4 DMC crew on the ground.

The brief

Amway is the world’s largest Direct Selling company, with over three million independent Amway Business Owners (ABOs) active globally. Amway embraces incentive travel as a strong tool for motivation and has consistently increased its investment in this area over the years. For Amway Europe, this project was the division’s highest tiered event with Amway Europe’s top achievers, the Diamond Club members.

The brief was to take 200 guests on a five-night full incentive programme to the archipelago nation of the Maldives. There was to be gala welcome and farewell dinners, an awards recognition ceremony and a series of activities to keep the guests engaged during their stay.

Challenges

According to Creative Travel, the Maldives is a destination that has little experience in group operations and Maldivian hotels have gained a reputation for avoiding large groups as it disrupts their normal business patterns.

Key challenges included: finding a resort willing to displace traditional business to take in a one-off group; sourcing and delivering all the elements needed to make a dream programme; maximising the use of the budget by prioritising expenses through micro level impact assessment of every item (Maldives is consistently rated as one of the ten most expensive places in the world to vacation in); and delivering on Amway’s extensive branding and gifting objectives in a destination with very limited material availability.

With no sightseeing. cultural sites, or off-site venues to work with, the team also had to take the canvas of a pure plain beach destination and deliver unique world class incentive level gala experiences.

The Solution

Based on the brief, Creative Travel concentrated on two core areas: creating a focus on the Amway brand and designing a Welcome Dinner, Recognition ceremony and Gala Dinner.

Strong branding was a key deliverable for Amway. But this required branding an entire 2km island. After two special scouting trips to the resort, a detailed branding plan was made to cover the entire resort with elements in unusual ways.

Creative Travel designed concepts for double-sided selfie walls; branded cushion covers for public areas; 28 branded pool umbrellas were ordered from overseas for both pools. Every room had guest names engraved on wooden door danglers placed before their arrival. Hotel key-cards were custom printed. Cloth napkins were embroidered with a logo for the welcome dinner. Branding was created for the resort buggies.

The Amway logo was built in an 8 ft tall 3D structure on the beach. The head-rests on the sea-planes were customised. Award winning sand-artists were brought in to create sculptures on various points on the island every day. In all, dozens of unique items were produced to carry the Amway brand for placement during the trip.

For the welcome dinner, a special extravagant seafood barbecue dinner was laid out along one beach. Lighting was used to give the zone an ambient chilled feel.

A well-known Maldivian traditional ‘Boduberu’ drummers’ troupe were brought in to perform. Sand artists produced the G&H product logo on the beach and all tables were laid with napkins with the logo embroidered on them.

For the grand finale, Creative Travel recommended a special Bollywood-themed evening. The event was divided into three zones – a pre-dinner reception area; dinner on the pool deck area and entertainment area far right on the beach.

All guests were all provided Indian outfits for the evening. These were individually sized, produced and flown in from India. During the afternoon of the event, the resort was decorated to match the theme. The evening started with a reception followed by a sit-down four course dinner during which India’s top acapella troupe, Raaga Trippin, performed.

As the dinner service ended, a surprise fireworks spectacle lit up the far-left side of the venue. As that came to an end, suddenly loud drum-beats filled the air as the Bollywood stage on opposite far-right beach came out of darkness.

The guests experienced a non-stop one-hour high energy dance and music extravaganza by the globally acclaimed Hormuzd Khambatta Dance company.

The verdict

This was the most logistically complex programme operated by Creative Travel and was a huge learning experience. “We are delighted to state that the project was a tremendous success. We delivered on every challenge and target set before us. The trip was a remarkable test of our skills as a DMC as we were tasked to design, conceptualise and execute a programme that no one had ever attempted before. We had to work within extreme limitations and maximise the use of our local relationships,” said Rajeev Kohli, joint managing director at Creative Travel.

From a Return on Objective (RoO) the programme exceeded expectations. The choice of the destination proved to be very instrumental in driving the sales for the year. When asked post trip, the ABOs clearly stated that the destination choice drove them harder to achieve targets as it was perceived to be too expensive to go on their own. It was also recorded for the first time that the ABOs asked for a destination be repeated soon, an unusual result in the incentive world.

Amway has stated that the trip demonstrated tangible benefits to them. The ABOs gave the trip a post trip evaluation of 5 out of 5 and is highly motivated, including those who did not attend but are excited about the prospect of the chance to earn a place on future trips.