There is a commercial that plays here - a woman's voice sings "Malaysia, Truly Asia" very catchy and pleasant. Ryan and I talk about this commercial and we ask "where are all those places?" We want to go there and it looks so lovely on the screen. We were laughing about this on our recent trip to Langkawi. The hotel was a bit run-down, swatting flies at breakfast and shoo-ing monkeys off the balcony. Not exactly what we had pictured from the commercial. More on this in a bit.
In order to write this post accurately, I did a little research. Here's what I found.
In 1999, Malaysia launched a worldwide marketing campaign called “Malaysia, Truly Asia” which was largely successful in bringing in over 7.4 million tourists. There were 16 million tourists in 2005. The extra revenue recently generated by tourism helped the country’s economy during the economic crisis of 2008. Malaysia boasted 24 million tourists in 2009. True to its slogan, it is home to a unique potpourri of Asian cultures — Malay, Chinese, Indian — along with many indigenous groups on Borneo island.
Malaysia is one of the most pleasant, hassle-free countries to visit in Southeast Asia. Aside from its gleaming 21st century glass towers, it boasts some of the most superb beaches, mountains and national parks in the region.
The bottom line is - the commercial works. Over the past decade, the campaign has won more than 25 awards worldwide and it has tripled its annual visitors.
We try to educate the kids about where we live, the world around us, a bit of social studies and geography (among other things). See the map of Malaysia below.
On our trip to Bali, we explained that we were going to a different country - Indonesia. But, when we flew to Kota Kinabalu and Langkawi we were still in Malaysia. We can drive to Singapore, but that is also a different country. So, we land in Langkawi and at the airport Brady declares, "Oh, it's not as bad as I thought it would be." This gave us a good laugh. Again, we start talking about the commercial.
While we still quite haven't found all those paradise locations of Malaysia, we are always pleasantly surprised. A new family has just arrived and the wife said she was pleasantly surprised. My mom and dad said the same thing. It's not as bad as we thought it would be and more often than not, better than expected. Perhaps the commercial isn't too far off the mark. Then we decided we were going to call the tourist board and change the slogan to Malaysia - Better Than Expected.
