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Written in the web
Travel writing is a fine art and an accepted literary genre that is read with great enthusiasm. Writers who are gifted with an ability to understand what they see can breathe life into a place when they narrate their travel experiences.
The internet that is wrongly considered as a pedestal for instantaneous scribbles mixed with emoticons and indecipherable abbreviations has already become a place to find some good travel literature, travelogues and travel stories in addition to online trading of travel services. It can be one of the best display places for local writers to showcase what Pakistan has to offer.
Ideally, a traveller should have some prosperity and lots of leisure time, must have an innate interest in history, heritage, culture and natural beauty. Travelling involves a desire to know what is unknown and to meet strange people.
Pakistan is a land of geographical, geological, and natural contrasts and has everything nature could bestow. Mehrgarh in Balochistan, Moenjodaro in Sindh and Harappa in Punjab are the places where some of the initial human activities began. Lost Valley in NWFP was once home to ancient Gandhara civilization where the fabled Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang treaded. According to a legend, Multan is living since the time of Noah. The Kalash community existing in the on-the-edge district Chitral still awaits anthropologists’ conclusive research about their origin. They still resist staunchly against all outside pressures for development and modernity. Then there is an unsolved riddle where rivers were lost (such as River Hakra in Cholistan). Pristine locations in Northern Pakistan invite discoverers. There one can see two seasons at the same place: winter above and summer below. Then there are thematic pilgrims for Sikh and Buddhist communities.
Now consider this: all major national publications have some portions designated for travel writing but it is a small and highly competitive market.
For those who write in English, language that is most widely understood on the web, the market is even smaller. Experienced travel writers are associated with newspapers and magazines and new ones get their chance to appear in print only occasionally. There should be more travel journalism and industry news.
Public should know that our ministry of tourism has reduces royalty fee for climbing Pakistani mountains that are above 6000 metres. On the other hand, fact-packed guidebooks with eye-catching, clear and sharp images of people and places enlivening every page provide good background information into any country’s history, culture, attractions, and its people; information that are useful during journeys to new places.
Guidebooks have their own style, quite different from travelogues and travel stories. The guidebook publishing business is totally in the hands of famous foreign companies and it is hard for local publishers to compete with them.
“Only foreign tourists need and buy guidebooks and they already have one when they arrive in Pakistan,” says a publisher, Munir Ahmad.
Still opportunities for travel writers do come up from time to time. Some guidebook companies also get updates and inputs from local writers and photographers that appear in their newer editions. Some time ago, for instance, Insight Guides commissioned a local writer to revise their outdated edition.
Tony Wheeler, British founder editor of Lonely Planet, while marketing guidebooks on Pakistan, prides in growing up in here for some years and has contact with many local travel writers for updates. But, Munir Ahmad says, “Publishing guidebooks is not a viable option here; it is difficult to sell books.” Same is the case with self-publishing writers.
Given the rate of travel industry’s growth and everyone’s interest in knowing new places, people and cultures, so many websites have come up that show travel contents all over internet. So far Pakistani destinations have very scanty presence on the web.
Print publications, particularly the English ones, get the original work and pay the writers whereas most websites just recycle travel articles from print media.
This scarcity of places where to get published leaves the travel writers to turn to internet where they can pitch their ideas to many editors of travel websites and or interested foreign publications who are always looking for new talent; eager and encouraging. Until that happens, the web is considered one of the best places for travel writes to start.
Not only that, writers can read what has already been published there and find background material and facts. Quick search on internet reveals so many starting points, notwithstanding travel writing how-to services and premium travel writers’ marketers.
In Pakistan, so far, much has not been documented systematically what to talk of presenting it on internet for others to find about with an aim to tempt them to come here and see (and spend their money in the process). Which is why Pakistani travel writers and photographers have a vast field of activity on hand right at home.
In addition to globetrotters with a compass, a camera and itchy feet, historians, geographers, archaeologists, geologists, naturalists and birdwatchers also need to publish their work in order to generate wide-ranging interests in off beat and mostly obscure destinations in Pakistan.
I know an engineer Itehar Mahmud who works with oil exploration firm and writes about places wherever he goes in connection with his duty. Col (retd) Mobashir Ahmad says he has travelled all along the borders “for reconnaissance purposes, mostly on foot” during his long service. He also writes his memories in the form of travelogues. It is in this context that web can be viewed as the playground for local talent.
Travel calendar of Pakistan is quite impressive. Where else in the world is polo played at Shandur Pass known as the “roof of the world”! But all these events go without any advance publicity or even follow-ups. One wonders how interested people would come to know about these events. The PTDC list of events and festivals needs to be improved and a lot more can be included.
Somebody has to write the travel literature in order to keep fuelling the demand for airline seats, hotel rooms, tour operators, eateries, transport companies, porters and facilitators, guidebooks, atlases, picture postcards and posters publishers, and other affiliates of the travel industry besides those communities whose major source of income comes from tourism.
Kim Rahan, a traveller from China who bought History of Rohtas Fort on location, told me, “This buy is to promote interest of people in travel-related vocations.”
Too often, deftly executed travelogues or a travel story can accomplish much more than any other promotional activity, particularly a story that combine passion, personality and perspective. Every place has a story (and a history), as they say. If you have a drive to write, there is a need of extensive travel writing showcasing Pakistan on the web.
The writer
