In a blocking season, Georgia Steel was preparing to take off.
A digital influencer and reality show star, Mrs. Steel left England in late December for Dubai, where she promoted lingerie from a luxury hotel on Instagram. In January, she was at a resort in the Maldives, where spa treatments include body wraps with sweet basil and coconut powder.
“We’re dripping,” said Steel, 22, to 1.6 million Instagram followers in a post that showed her sailing in tropical waters in a bikini. Forget that the number of Covid-19 cases in Britain and the Maldives was increasing, or that England had just announced its third blockade.
Maldives, an island nation off the coast of India, not only tolerates tourists like Steel, but encourages them to visit them. More than 300,000 have arrived since the country reopened its borders last summer, including several dozen influencers, social media stars with many followers who are often paid to sell products. Many influencers were courted by the government and traveled on paid trips to exclusive resorts.
The government says its open-door strategy is ideal for a country dependent on tourism, whose decentralized geography – about 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean – helps with social detachment. Since the reopening of borders, far less than 1 percent of incoming visitors have tested positive for the coronavirus, official data show.
“You never know what will happen tomorrow,” said Thoyyib Mohamed, the managing director of the country’s official public relations agency. “But for now, I must say: this is a really good case study for the whole world, especially for tropical destinations.”
The Maldives’ strategy carries epidemiological risks and highlights how distant vacation spots and the influencers they woo have become hot spots for controversy.
As people around the world take shelter, some influencers posted about fleeing to small cities or foreign countries and encouraged their followers to do the same, potentially endangering locals and other people they come into contact with in their lives. trips.
“So, we’re not in a pandemic, huh?” Beverly Cowell, an administrator in England, commented on Steel’s Instagram post, giving voice to many who see these travelers as circumventing the rules.
Inviting influencers to visit during the pandemic can damage the image of a destination, said Francisco Femenia-Serra, a tourism expert at Nebrija University in Madrid who studies influencer marketing.
“What’s wrong with the Maldives campaign is the right time,” he said, noting that it started before travelers could be vaccinated. “It’s off. This is not the time to do this. “
When the Maldives closed its borders last March to protect itself against the virus, it did not make a decision lightly: tourism employs more than 60,000 of the country’s 540,000 inhabitants, more than any other private sector industry, according to Nashiya Saeed, a consultant in the Maldives, who recently co-wrote a government study on the economic impact of the pandemic.
“When tourism ended, there was no revenue entering the country,” said Saeed. Many workers fired from resorts living in the capital, Malé, were forced to return to their islands because they could no longer afford to pay, she added.
While health officials worked to contain local outbreaks, advisers to President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih developed a strategy to restart tourism as quickly as possible. One advantage is that most luxury resorts in the country are on their own islands, making isolation and contact tracking much easier.
“We really planned this, knew what our advantages were and played for them,” said Solih’s spokesman, Mohamed Mabrook Azeez.
When the Maldives reopened in July, health officials demanded PCR testing, among other security protocols, but did not subject tourists to mandatory quarantine. At the same time, the country’s public relations agency changed its international marketing campaign and encouraged travelers to “rediscover” the Maldives.
The government and local businesses have also invited influencers to stay at resorts and talk about them on social media. What they did.
“When it’s cloudy be the sun!” Ana Cheri, an American influencer with more than 12 million followers, wrote from a resort in the Maldives in November, a few weeks before her home state of California, imposing long-range roadblocks. “Diving and swinging over the weekend!”
Cheri did not respond to several emails after initially agreeing to comment. A press officer for Steel, a star on the reality show “Love Island,” did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Even before the pandemic, influencers faced adverse reactions when their travels were offensive. Some who posted about travel to Saudi Arabia have been criticized, for example, for the role of the kingdom in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
England’s influencers, in particular, have faced criticism in recent weeks for defying the blocking rules that prohibit all travel except essential travel. Some defended their travels, saying travel was essential to their work, while others apologized under public pressure.
“I was like, ‘Oh, well, it’s cool, so it’s fine,'” said influencer KT Franklin in an apology video about his trip to the Maldives. “But it is not well. It is really irresponsible and reckless and deaf to tones. “
In late January, Britain banned direct flights to and from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, as the number of Covid-19 cases soared in both places. The emirate’s loose immigration rules and perpetual sun have made it a popular spot for the social media ensemble. But as the number of cases increased, the authorities closed bars and pubs for a month and limited hotels, shopping malls and beach clubs to 70% of capacity.
Maldivian officials, who have already received about 150,000 tourists this year, said they have no plans to implement similar restrictions.
The country reported almost 20,000 coronavirus infections in total, equivalent to about 4 percent of its population, and 60 deaths. But no resort group has sown widespread transmission in the community, and officials say the risk is low because some resort employees are forced to quarantine if they travel between the islands.
“Overall, I think we managed to do this well,” although some tourists tested positive before leaving the country, said Dr. Nazla Rafeeg, head of communicable disease control at the government’s Health Protection Agency. “Our guidelines have resisted real implementation.”
Many influencers and celebrities faced the reproach of other social media users who are stuck at home. Instagram accounts have emerged to name and embarrass tourists who appear to be violating the rules of social distance and wearing masks abroad.
As a result, some influencers refrained from posting travel content during the pandemic – or at least disabled comments on their posts – because they don’t want to court controversy.
The coup against traveling influencers is exaggerated, said Raidh Shaaz Waleed, whose company arranged for Steel, Cheri and more than 30 other influencers to visit the Maldives through a campaign called Project FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out. , he said, tested positive for coronavirus.
“If you are paying attention to safety guidelines, if you are doing social detachment, you can still have fun,” he said.
Not everyone shares your optimism.
Cowell, the administrator in England who commented on Steel’s post “We be drippin ‘” from the Maldives, said in emails that promoting such a trip during England’s third blockade was irresponsible.
The position was particularly difficult to accept, she added, because she appeared the day she learned that her grandmother, who lives in a nursing home, had contracted the virus.
“It’s not about canceling them or creating a negative online environment,” said Cowell, 22, of influencers who break the blocking rules, “but making sure we don’t put celebrities on a pedestal where they feel invincible and can do what they like. “
Taylor Lorenz contributed reporting.