Kuantan,  Malaysia,  Pahang

Tourism Pahang Blogger

I was invited on Saturday (28th July) to join a Tourism Pahang Blogger colloquium organised by Tourism Pahang, in Kuantan, Pahang. The event kicked-off at 3pm with a speech by Dato’ Shafik Fauzan bin Shariff, the Pahang State Minister for Tourism Malaysia. Pahang Tourism is handled by Fraser’s Hill Development Corporation (Perbadanan Kemajuan Bukit Fraser – PKBF).

Other blogger friends that were also invited include Yafielda, Jard, Rayyan and Lilyriani. All of them are also the Malaysian Travel Bloggers members.


Dato’ Shafik Fauzan

In his welcoming speech, Dato’ Shafik explains about Pahang’s plan to boost its tourism sector with the help of bloggers. He added that traditionally, the tourism body has mainstream media to spread tourism information and activities but however, as part of the efforts to boost tourism industry this year, they decided to invite the new social media — bloggers. Stating about the state’s ‘naivety’ about social media, Dato’ Shafik said that he is open to any suggestions by bloggers to help improve tourism in the state. He explains that bloggers are very powerful when it comes to dissemination of  information as they often come equipped with social sharing tools such as twitter, facebook, etc and that they exert strong influence, reaching millions of people.

During the colloquium (informal meeting), bloggers were presented with information about Tourism Pahang website by the CEO of Secretlab.Media, Mohd Khairul Azizi Mohd Razali. Azizi emphasised the importance of social media and he revealed the fact that previously, the global ranking for the Tourism Pahang is 13M. When his company was given the task to revamp the website, he integrated social media buttons such as twitter, facebook, foursquare, G+1 and many more for easy sharing. Now, Tourism Pahang website’s rank has improved to 3M and as such, it is hoped that it will improve when bloggers shared their articles on the website. This feature is still under testing and will be released soon.

There were also talks about blogging basics by two Pahang-based bloggers, Azwan and Fatin Suhana.

Tourism Pahang is considering to organise many interesting activities (as per suggestion by bloggers during the meeting) including familiarisation tour for bloggers, contests, blogger’s award and many more. Apart from that, Tourism Pahang which has yet to launch its newly revamped website, is very much excited to invite bloggers to join the launch soon.

Pahang, situated on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, is blessed with a variety of natural and cultural attractions. It is a home to Malaysia’s national Park as well as three major highlands, namely Genting Highland, Cameron Highland and Fraser’s Hill. Apart from the highlands, Pahang boasts some 210 kilometers of shoreline that includes the famous Cherating beach. For marine life fans, there is Tioman. The island park is teeming with an assortment of exotic marine life that turn the colorful coral reefs as their homes.

I am planning to explore more of Pahang soon. Being a Pahang-born blogger, I feel that I need to explore my birth state. My recent trips to Fraser’s Hill and Deerland Park (Gandah Elephant post still in draft) were some of the starters.

 

 

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