Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2013 is a 6 days and 5 nights tourism promotional programme in the concept of “Fly and Drive” with various exciting tourism exploration activities such as treasure hunt and VolunTourism. The 'Fly and Drive' concept is a campaign to promote Malaysia as an easy self-drive holiday destination where tourists can fly in and drive out to experience the best of Malaysian tourist attractions, culture and culinary treats.
Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2013 is composed of 57 local media and travel agents of Malaysia and 18 international media participants (ASEAN) which divided in 20 teams. The prizes at stake were 4000RM + 20,000RM worth of gift certificates including round trip tickets, 3D/2N luxurious hotel accommodation and a lot more.
ASEAN though have different culture and beliefs have this immense respect for the people around us, I think that’s innate in us. So clashing these participants from Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei in one event would be a big bash. Filipino participants were bloggers Gael, Lloyd, Edgar and PhilStar journalists Rafael and Camille.
The hunt started at administrative capitol of Putrajaya and continued to Sepang, Port Dickson and went down to the World Heritage Site of Melaka, Muar, Kluang and Johor Bahru as our last pit stop. In every pit stop, the Tourism Malaysia gave us only the most luxurious hotel accommodation in Malaysia; The Everly Hotel at Putrajaya, The Grand Lexis Hotel at Port Dickson, The Hatten Hotel in Melaka and the Puteri Pacific Hotel in Johor Bahru.
The Everly Hotel at Putrajaya
It’s a whirlwind event for me when I was asked to transfer from Team 13 to Team 16 and was asked again to move to another team, hence my final team, Team 20. We named our team as MalPhil for we were composed of 2 Malaysians and 2 Filipinos. Our team is such an experiment of one’s age, character and of course, religion but with one goal to have fun more than to win this hunt made us a perfect combination.
Wan is our big mama in our team, she’s a bigshot travel agent in Malaysia. She’s sweet, compassionate, what I liked about Wan is she let us sleep whenever it’s a long drive to conserve energy for the next tiring hunt, she’s so caring. Kadir is a broadcast journalist, we were very lucky to have him in our team, just imagine that for the entire hunt he’s the only guy driving for us from Putrajaya to Johor Bahru with total distance of 1100km. Aside from that he’s smart when it comes to our challenges and tough too. Lloyd was my Filipino team mate; he’s been to Malaysia for 9 times and knows Malaysia impressively strange.
with Lloyd, our big mama Wan & Kadir at Melaka during the hunt.
Throughout the Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2013, we found home in red Proton Preve for it served us our cozy and cool shelter during the race, it also where we catch up gossips around Malaysia. It seems like we knew each other before for a long time.
All of us effortless bared the true meaning of camaraderie during the hunt. The affinity and hard work of our group was rewarded by being the 7th place in the hunt. We got each a round trip ticket to Penang by Berjaya Air and 3D/2N accommodation in Hotel Seri Malaysia Lawas, Sarawak for 2. Lucky me, I also won an iPad Mini that night in a special game.
I also found true friends in the rivalry teams, in the persona of my Filipino, Malaysian and Indonesian co-participants. I never had a dull time with them, shared the funniest and purest moments; we didn’t see it as competition but a long journey for us to know each other better.
This invitation from Gaya Travel to participate in Malaysian Tourism Hunt 2013 was unexpected and never knew coming. I’m privileged to be part of this year’s hunt; it was a big success and hoping to be invited again in the next year event. Come Visit Malaysia in 2014 to experience the true living in Asia by fusion of tourism destination, products, cultural heritage and the warmth hospitality of Malaysians. Malaysia is truly Asia!
Official Logo of MTH 2013
This is just a recap of what happened in the Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2013, wait for my blow by blow post about this event.
