The South Asian Travel Awards marked their tenth edition this month with a strong night for the Maldives, handing out accolades to a family resort, a dive operator and an inbound travel agency — and each award says something useful about where holidays in the country are heading.
The most traveller-relevant winner was Kandooma Maldives, named Leading Family Resort on 8 October. The 146-villa property in South Malé Atoll has built its reputation on removing friction for parents: under-13s stay and eat free, and the resort is a 45-minute speedboat ride from Velana International Airport — no seaplane surcharges, luggage limits or extra legs of travel. General Manager Andrew Drummond says the next focus is the often-forgotten 13-to-18 age group, with programming aimed at teens who have outgrown the kids' club but are too young to simply lounge by a pool. Accommodation ranges from Beach and Garden Villas with interconnecting options to two- and three-bedroom Beach Houses for extended families.
Diving also took centre stage. Ocean Group Maldives, operating resort-based dive programmes since 1998, picked up Leading Dive Centre/Brand. The company runs PADI-certified, multilingual teams across luxury resorts, and has expanded beyond diving into watersports, excursions, yachting and marine biology — including coral restoration and conservation work with resort partners. For anyone booking a Maldives trip with underwater time on the agenda, operators like this are the reason resort dive centres have become genuinely professional operations rather than an afterthought.
Behind the scenes, Sun Travels was named Best Inbound Travel Agency, recognised for its shift from traditional agency work to a tech-driven B2B platform with real-time resort inventory and API connectivity. Less flashy, but it means travel agents worldwide can book Maldives resorts faster and more reliably.
There was international validation too: Constance Halaveli landed 10th place in Condé Nast Traveller UK's Top 25 Resorts in the Indian Ocean, part of a wider haul that saw Constance Lémuria and Ephelia in the Seychelles and Tsarabanjina in Madagascar also recognised in the Readers' Choice Awards.
Why should a holidaymaker care? Awards nights are easy to dismiss, but this cluster points to the Maldives broadening beyond the honeymoon market. Family-focused pricing (free kids' meals), teen engagement, robust dive infrastructure and smoother booking systems all make the country more workable for travellers who aren't a couple on their first trip together. Kandooma in particular stands out as a rare all-inclusive island where a speedboat transfer and a kids-eat-free policy make the classic 'too expensive for families' Maldives equation actually add up.
