Tourists don't care about official videos

On Jan 6, Tourism Malaysia unveiled Visit Malaysia Year 2026's campaign's logo, mascot, theme song, and aircraft livery. 

There was no mention of any promotional video but a 41-second video clip designed specifically for the launch event was shown and later shared online. Soon, it was lambasted for not showing a mosque, when it featured a church and a temple.

How important are tourism promotion videos? They are more effective than texts as people prefer to watch and listen rather than read. 

Using montage by combining still photos or videos lasting a few seconds plus lively narration and music is better than just tabulating a long list of attractions.

Promotion videos are not documentaries. The former is more like commercials and the latter is educational by compiling and presenting factual information. 

Therefore, short promotion videos of Malaysia can only contain snippets of our country, and not a politically correct complete list.

But more importantly, are official promotion videos truly effective? If they are, then every country that has produced such videos would be swarming with foreign tourists, but this has not happened. 

To begin with, these videos would be viewed by very few of the targeted audiences.

For example, how many readers have watched official promotion videos of other countries? The chances are the same as foreigners watching official promotion videos of Malaysia.

Although in the tourism industry, I have not watched a single one of them and have no plans to do so. 

I have watched hundreds of video clips and glanced through publications in English by local news media, but not reports by Western media, as many are biased and full of propaganda.

I like watching travel and food videos, but with no plans to travel there. As for destination promotion videos, they are less effective than normal commercials that advertise specific products by stoking emotions.

Lest we forget, the most effective video clips are those recorded and forwarded by family members, relatives, friends and acquaintances, as they are most likely to be watched. These private videos could also spur many viewers to make plans to visit the destination or attraction.

On the other hand, images of sandy beaches and jungle-clad mountains may portray Malaysia as a tropical paradise but such isolated sites are unreachable to most visitors. Tourists who buy tour packages are only brought to places along the routes planned in the tour itinerary.

After receiving criticisms for mosques being left out in the video clip, the tourism minister appeared to have backpedalled by announcing that a detailed video would be released soon, but he was not satisfied after viewing it on Jan 9 and ordered it to be redone.

He was reported to have said: "I want the video to be divided by zones, so that people can understand what (attractions) each state has to offer, not jumping from here to there... causing foreign tourists to be confused, not knowing which attraction belongs to which state.

"We will properly promote every state, and I have asked all state governments to cooperate and supply us with all the information about their tourism destinations, products, and (tour) packages, or even their signature dishes so that we can put it up and highlight (in the video)".

All very politically correct of course and such a lengthy video with a complete list of everything makes great reference material but few people would watch. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.