ow with more than 165 private-island resorts, 245 dive centers, and the world’s largest fleet of seaplanes, it’s hard to imagine a) on an uninhabited isle near Male 50 years ago marked the arrival of the country’s very first resort. Its founders included a junior Maldivian diplomat called Ahmed Naseem, who by chance had met George Corbin, an Italy-based tour operator, in Sri Lanka the previous year and had been working with him since to introduce Italian travelers to the Indian Ocean archipelago. Kurumba (named for the Dhivehi word for “coconut”) opened in October 1972 with just 30 rustic thatched-roofed rooms, and it was booked solid that first year. Clearly, its young owners were onto something. After the Male airport was expanded to accommodate wide-body jets in 1981, tourism in the Maldives took off; by 2019, tourist arrivals had climbed to 1.7 million. Kurumba itself has grown over the decades to encompass 180 rooms and villas, eight restaurants, a tranquil garden spa, and all the other accouterments we’ve come to expect from a Maldivian resort. It may not be the splashiest property in an archipelago now famous for its ultra-lavish escapes, but it will always be the original.
