Ahmed Asim, room director of St. Regis Vommuli. [Photo by St. Regis/provided to China Daily]

"Wow! was my reaction," Asim recalls, casting an incredulous look. "Then I told myself: 'Someday I'm going to work here.'"

The wide-eyed child has given way to a soft-spoken man with a confident air, and in the meantime he has gained a diploma in hospitality and worked as a trainee butler and then as a butler for many years in a number of hotels, some of them luxury ones. He joined the St. Regis at Vommuli as room director in October, when preparations were being made for the hotel's grand opening.

"Between 50 and 60 percent of our 300-strong staff are Maldivians," Asim says. "Quite a few of us, including me, are in management."

Spending the bulk of his time in air-conditioned rooms or traveling in buggies from villa to villa, Asim's life is a world apart from that of his parents, who have seven children including him.

"Like most Maldivian families of their generation, my father made a living out of fishing while my mother did household chores. The sea around here is probably the calmest on Earth. I've never heard of anyone who died out fishing in the sea. But still, the sun and the wind can be unforgiving; that's why few young people are involved in fishing today."