Most resorts have a standard form of salutation the staff shall use to great guests and to answer telephone calls to the resort. These forms of greetings are chosen and determined by the management sometimes after extensive research and a good amount of thought. Sometimes decisions are taken even after consultation with linguists, historians and tourism ministry itself. However the forms of salutations appear terribly unwieldy and out of place in the local language or to the guests who are absolutely baffled by strange forms.
In common normal starred resorts, the greeting maybe the standard forms everyone accepts such as the English forms and Italian, German forms. However resorts who wants to be classed as classy and exclusive choose exotic forms which are quite hilarious at times. For example the word “dharuma huri” is an invented form of salutation used in Anantara resorts in Maldives. The words are local and yet has never been use for forms of greeting in Maldives or anywhere else. “Dharuma” means something like blessing and is associated with Hindhu concept of Dharuma and Karma. “Huri” simply means there is and conjoining the words to form an exotic form of greeting to be used as standard simply does not make much sense. An alternative form infrequently used in local language is “Baajeveri” +”Hendhune”, “Raegande”, “Haveere” etc. These words are simple translations of the words good + morning, evening, afternoon etc. These same forms are used in Arabic such as Sabaah al kahir, Masaa al kahair, etc which is in addition to standard Islamic salutation of Assalaam alaikum.
Maldives Resort Workers 