South Palm Maldives was heavily ridiculed two years ago when they started working on developing a resort in Ismehela Hera, an island located just next to Hulhumeedhoo, Addu City. While many people thought of it as an impossible task, many residents of Addu City itself criticized South Palm Maldives on social media.
The first phase of the resort began with only 12 employees under the leadership of Moosa Dhayyan and Ibrahim Saleem (Bandhu Saleem). When this was reported by AO News, it was the author of the article who became a target of the readers’ criticism. Many people mocked the idea of developing a resort with only a ‘kathi valhi (a strong knife used in everyday activities such as collecting firewood), a wheelbarrow and a can of water’. However, Moosa always said that only 12 employees were needed for the resort at that time, and that more would be added as the work progresses further. Moosa and his team have always been absolutely sure that Ismehela Hera would soon be developed as a fully fledged resort and would be beneficial to the economy of Addu City.
Although initially the work of resort began with just 12 employees, Ismehela Hera has now been completely developed and rebranded as “South Palm Resort Maldives”, and employees a total staff of 150 currently. More job vacancies for the resort have also been announced, and many youths from Addu have already applied to various positions of the new resort.
Even though South Palm Resort Maldives will officially be open to tourists from 01st December 2019 onwards, the resort has been completely finished and is ready for operations.
While many previous opening dates have been announced for the resort, there have been some unavoidable delays due to technical difficulties. However, the CEO of the company, Moosa is positive that the resort will open very soon.
“There will be delays when working. Technical issues will also come. The team is working extremely hard. Resort will open very soon”, says Moosa.
The first phase of South Palm Maldives has been completed with 30 water villas, 60 beach villas and 40 ocean villas and will offer employment opportunities to 600 people when the development is complete. 60 rooms of the resort have already been booked and a chartered flight from Europe is ready to bring in their first guests to Addu City.
South Palm Resort Maldives will unarguably kick-start the tourism industry of Addu and open a wide range of employment opportunities for the youth of the city which will certainly boost the economy of Addu.
