Brunei Tourism Road Show was held in Guijing Hotel of Nanning. It is one of road shows conducted by the Brunei Tourism Development Department together with members of the Brunei Tourism industry in China. Mr. Sheikh Jamaluddin, chief of the Brunei Tourism lead the travel agencies from Brunei, and 110 people from China's travel industry and top medias attended this road show.

"This is our strategy," said Brunei Tourism chief Sheikh Jamaluddin during the road show. "I am taking advice from travel agents here to fish somewhere that is less known.

"Some people asked me, why we want to hold a road show in places where Brunei is still relatively unknown to the people. But this is like fishing, you never know what happens until you go fishing in that area," Sheikh Jamaluddin said.

The format of the road shows, according to the Brunei Tourism, will be the same in each city, and will consist of an evening reception during which a presentation on Brunei and RBA will be made, followed by a networking session between Brunei industry members and their Chinese counterparts, games, animation and prize presentation culminating with a banquet.

The Brunei Tourism said the objective of the road show is to increase awareness about Brunei as a destination and about the RBA flights available from Shanghai and Hong Kong to the Chinese media and travel industry partners at the three second-tier cities in China. And they also expect to attract interest from market areas and increase sales volumes within a relatively short period of time, probably starting from the 2008 Lunar New Year holiday period.

With a growing number of affluent people in China, outbound tourism is on the rise, and Brunei could become a stop for them if only the tourism promotion keeps pace with China's growth.

It is customary for countries to embark on such promotional exercises for their key markets, and with China being Brunei's top market in terms of holiday visits, with some 30,000 tourists from China projected to visit Brunei in 2007, it is timely for Brunei Tourism to woo the market in a more direct way and take the opportunity to begin the road show in Nanning during their participation in the 4th China-Asean Expo.