As the countdown to Seaside Finolhu’s much anticipated reopening begins, it is not just the luxury Maldives resort’s design, facilities and services that are undergoing an extensive upgrade. The entire Finolhu team has been hard at work implementing new protocols and measures to ensure the wellbeing of both guests and islanders is fully protected when the resort begins welcoming guests again in October.

With every region of the world affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and many countries currently in various stages of recovery, the focus has been shifting to ensuring customer safety as businesses reopen. Affecting almost every industry and facet of daily life, a number of new procedures are being introduced to reduce the risk of infection by changing people’s habits and behaviours. In the tourism industry, managing these measures requires a balance between ensuring people’s safety and minimising their impact on how people go about their activities.

In updating its cleaning regimes to incorporate even more rigorous standards, the resort has partnered with Ecolab, a world leader in hygiene and cleaning technologies and services. The resort’s enhanced and expanded cleaning procedures include additional COVID-19 protocols and best practices that meet the recommendations set by the World Health Organization, the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention, and local public health authorities in the Maldives.

Working with Ecolab, the property began by conducting a thorough assessment of every point of guest contact and then developed a health and safety plan that works by minimising contact, ensuring thorough sanitisation where contact is inevitable, promoting social distancing measures, and educating both the resort’s staff and the guests on maintaining advanced hygiene practices that start before guests arrive at the resort and continue until they are on their way home again.

Inside the villas, frequently touched items such as key cards, glassware, upholstery and remote controls are sanitised regularly. For their added protection and peace of mind during their stay, every guest will receive a ‘Care-4-Me’ kit that includes face masks, hand sanitiser, and sanitisation wipes, while some non-essential items like note pads and service directories have been removed from the villas.

While Finolhu has always applied rigorous standards to its food and beverage hygiene, these have been enhanced and supplemented with extra measures. All of the resort’s F&B staff undergo thorough training in safe food preparation and service practices and adhere to a strict self-inspection protocol that applies food safety standards as their guidelines, with compliance validated by independent audits.

Under its new health and safety plan, all of the Seaside Finolhu’s public areas are now cleaned more frequently and with EPA-approved hospital-grade products, while signage placed around the resort remind guests of the importance of maintaining social distancing protocols and using the hand sanitiser gel which is placed near all entrances, fitness areas, and public meeting areas.

Marc Reader, general manager of Seaside Finolhu said: “Our in-house medical doctor is working closely with a team of medical experts at the Health Protection Agency to ensure the resort team receive the guidance and resources they need on returning to work and keeping guests safe in this new environment. The extensive training our Islanders undergo is focused on educating and empowering them to deliver our enhanced health and safety program with complete understanding and confidence so that they are able to pass on this care to each and every guest.”