The Maldives Ministry of Tourism has launched the world’s first nation-based loyalty programme: Maldives Border Miles

According to the website, Maldives Border Miles is:

“a three-tiered loyalty program focused on tourism promotion. Tourists enrolled to this program will earn points for each border crossing. Additional points are rewarded for the visits on special occasions. Once the tourist reaches to a tally of a specific amount of points, privileges are rewarded with amazing benefits. As they move up the tiers, privileges are enhanced, and benefits are made exclusive.”

The tiers are described as follows:

• Bronze membership level is called Aida. The word Aida is from Divehi linguistic, which is referred to a bright star on the sky.
• Silver membership level is called Antara. The word Antara is from Divehi linguistic which is referred as attractive and prestigious.
• Gold membership level is called Abaarana. The word Abaarana is from Dhivehi linguistic, which is an honorific name given to monarchs.

As yet, no details seem to have been made public about what sort of benefits will actually be made available, or how many trips you need to make to rise through the different tiers.

Bottom line

Maldives Border Miles is pretty confusing so far. You can admire the innovation, but it’s hard to see how it will actually make any sense.

What realistic/useful benefits could the Ministry of Tourism really offer frequent guests? Even if they could, are they the sort of things that would genuinely encourage someone to visit the Maldives more than they otherwise would? Is the number of border crossings a person makes really a useful way to measure their importance to the national tourism industry?

There are a lot of questions. But, for now, maybe it’s best to reserve judgement, applaud the innovation, and look forward to hearing more details.

What do you think about Maldives Border Miles?