Author: Mohamed Reehaan

Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru announces a new extensive range of wellness activities at the resort. Starting from August 2022, the new wellness activities are part of enhancing the guest experience, says Banyan Tree. At the resort, the new rollout of wellness activities are spearheaded by Dr. Tomson Jose, the in-house Wellbeing Manager. New activities include ‘Ocean Breath’, a guided meditation session at the beach for travelers. Other activities include spinal stretch, Core Pilates, posture alignment and body tension release. The resort also announces two new physical activities as part of the wellness offerings; Fat Blast and Island Trail.

The Ooredoo Experience Center (OEC) and Club Premier Lounge at Addu City Hithadhoo reopened on Monday, 22nd August, post significant upgrades to the establishment. The center and lounge premises have been upgraded to reflect Ooredoo’s new tagline ‘Upgrade Your World’, which is the company’s most contemporary effort in providing digital services to the expanding customer base in the southern-most city. The center is situated at Hithadhoo link-road. Designed to ensure spacious area for visiting customers to experience the latest and best in Ooredoo offerings, says the company. Monday’s reopening was officiated by the company’s CEO Khalid Al Hamadi and Chief…

State Trading Organization (STO) launches new ‘Magey Hiyaa’ promotion at STO People’s Choice. Discounts under the promotion are set through three major categories, and the promotion will last from 22nd August until 10th November. The categories include; For purchases between MVR15,000 to MVR25,000 – 12% discount on products For purchases between MVR25,000 to MVR35,000 – 15% discount on products For purchases between MVR35,000 and above – 18% discount on products In addition to price discounts, customers making purchases worth MVR5,000 and above will receive a lucky-draw coupon. The first place winner of the lucky-draw will receive MVR20,000 in cash price,…

Bank of Maldives (BML) on Monday, 22nd August, announced that its American Express debit cards are now accepted worldwide. American Express card types in the Maldives has been launched exclusively for domestic use until now. The card type now can be linked to USD accounts for foreign purchases online and overseas – the transactions daily default limit is USD3,000. Bank of Maldives, acting in-charge and acting MD Aishath Noordeen, “As part of our long-standing partnership with American Express, we are pleased to extend our existing debit card product by providing acceptance at all American Express merchants worldwide.” “Today’s announcement underscores…

The widely anticipated Game of Thrones prequel ‘House of the Dragon’ attracted an onslaught of viewers, straining the streaming service on Sunday evening. Bloomberg’s Chen and Palmeri reports over 3,000 outage reporting across the global monitoring service Downdetector at 09:00hrs local time in New York; coinciding with ‘House of the Dragon’ premiere. Meanwhile, a Warner Bros Discovery Inc. representative notes that the show is being “successfully viewed” by millions on subscribers. The parent company of HBO Max further in a statement said, “We’re aware of a small portion of users attempting to connect via Fire TV devices that are having…

Tourist arrivals to the Maldives exceed over 1.02 million as of 17th August 2022, reports Ministry of Tourism. According to the ministry’s recent statistical update, annual arrivals hit 1,028,467 by the review date. This marks an annual increment of 47.9% in comparison with same period last year that had an arrival total of 695,406. Despite tourism arrival breaching the millionth mark, arrivals remain 4.8% below pre-pandemic levels in 2019; during which annual arrivals stood at 1,080,128. Meanwhile, the daily arrival average in annual terms is at 4,491 while from 1st to 17th August it is at 4,806. Average duration of…

The national carrier of Kuwait is set to launch its direct flights to the Maldives. Kuwait Airways will launch their flight operations with a bi-weekly basis, officially on 31st October. The airline will use their Airbus A320 class commercial carriers for the service. The Western Asian nation’s airline is the latest from the region to launch its direct flight services to the Maldives. Meanwhile UAE’s budget carrier Wizz Air is set to launch their operations to the Maldives by last quarter of 2022 as well. Middle-East, an emerging tourism market, continues with rapid tourist arrival improvement to the island nation.…

Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) concludes a three-month long campaign with Turkish Airlines. The campaign kicked off in February 2022, in efforts to position Maldives as a top-of-the-mind destination in Turkish market. The efforts were on targeted consumers to increase Maldives brand awareness and destination presence. Under the campaign, 30-second promo videos of the Maldivian tourism products played before the beginning of each available inhouse flight entertainment system on all Turkish Airlines’ flights. The video aired across 44,800 Turkish Airlines’ flights, with estimates of 11.2 million views.

An Indian teenager, Varun Saikia, 16, has created a prototype device which he claims can clean up several tons of ocean waste. Saikia’s own design, dubbed ‘Flipper’ can reportedly operate on its own or can be used by attacking to a ship. He estimates a scaled-up device, can hold anywhere from 1,000 pounds to hundreds of tons of plastic waste, depending on how it is deployed. While the design is still a prototype in its testing phase, Saikia claims 100 ships equipped with the ‘Flipper’ technology can clean up the Pacific garbage patches in about a year. “I am currently…

Sandia National Labs successfully demonstrated supercritical carbon-dioxide as a viable power source; achieved when the lab connected a closed-loop system to a local grid. The grid received 10 kilowatts of power for roughly an hour, reports Brandon Vigliarolo writing for The Register. The experimental unit uses carbon-dioxide in a supercritical state (pressurized to behave like liquid and gas) to move the turbine. Supercritical CO2 can get far hotter than steam, and is more efficient if scaled to power plant levels and heated via nuclear, solar or fossil fuels. Using what Sandia dubs as the Brayton cycle, the supercritical CO2 is…