4 concerned Malaysians wrote an open letter to Prime Minister YAB Dato' Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad August 31, 1998... 

Come Oct 1998 -- instead of mamak stall talk till dawn, get thrown into jail for admiring the Tallest Flag Pole in the World or window-shopping at Jalan TAR (yup, Globe Silk Store is an alternative to DKNY) -- these 4 Malaysians decided to do something constructive by taking their letter to YAB PM one step further simply because the man in the street (whose livelihood depends on tourists, selling souvenirs, etc) are badly hurt. They started a Visit Malaysia CyberCampaign (VMCC) to help our country bring the tourists back.

Circulated among friends who forwarded to their friends, webmasters IDM felt sorry for them and volunteered to redesign the homepage.

Fueled by the positive encouragement and response...

The gang of 4 expanded to 9 volunteers then decided to host a press conference Dec 3, 1998 to encourage fellow Malaysian internet users to tell their friends overseas to visit Malaysia.

Logic: If we can imagine it, we can do it! Imagine if there is a million Malaysian Internet users - if everyone send ten Think Holiday Think Malaysia! e-cards, we would have narrow-cast to 10 million foreigners. If we persuade our friends to pass it on to ten of their friends, we are imagining a universe of 100 million people getting to know Malaysia. As students of marketing, we believe that planting the seed is all important.

Many asked who they were and decided to call themselves "Pahlawan" (Warrior)...

VMCC was featured in Asian Wall Street Journal Jan 29-30 1999. "The Visit Malaysia Cyber Campaign" underscores the growing importance of e-mail and the World Wide Web as low-cost, grass roots direct marketing tools…." 

To douse the national economic house on fire quicker, Pahlawan approached Minister of Culture, Arts and Tourism. YB offered to launch VMCC as a National Campaign March 4, 1998

Tourism Malaysia is supporting this campaign by co-hosting a Think Holiday Think Malaysia Competition open to Malaysians and Net Citizens of the World.

Prime Minister YAB Dato' Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad sends Pahlawan a message…

To date (May 19, 1999), this campaign is mirrored at 5 sites, recorded 20,710 hits (since Nov 27,1998), sent 330,000 e-cards overseas to promote Malaysian tourism, attracted 569 participants in various competition categories and 138 link partners nationwide.
 

Why VMCC...

Tourism industry is the fastest 'cash cow' to bring the much-needed cash flow into the country. Malaysia is among the cheapest tourist destination in Asia. Tourism Malaysia reports that each inbound foreign visitor spends an average of RM2,000 on accommodation (5-6 night stay), food, tours, transport, souvenirs, etc. (RM8.5 billion tourism revenue last year.)

Tourism promotion requires passionate and sustained efforts. VMCC adds meaning (and dollars) to "patriotism." Malaysian Airline, hotels and tourism promotion agencies can leverage on Malaysians' overseas network in a national bottom up promotion approach. An example is the network of Malaysians students' abroad. In the last 41 years with a guesstimate 500,000 Malaysians having studied abroad, if each is incentivized to conduct a personal campaign to invite their former classmates -- Hypothetically, if one can bring in 5 tourists with an average spending power of USD2000 each, some USD5 billion new revenue could be in sight. 

Moreover, being a people-to-people campaign, with no political position to defend nor an urgent commercial message, VMCC is more effective to counter the bad international publicity that has kept potential tourists away (such as the perceived continuing haze since 1997 and riots). 

It did not stop there. Check out the rest of Pahlawan Initiatives.