It was Ivy Pan’s deep love for Sarawak and Borneo as a whole, and the desire to share them with the world, that led to the creation of a magazine called BorneoTalk, a well-known quarterly magazine.
Initially named “Kuching Talk” when it was first published in 2006, the magazine focused on tourism, but soon, the idea grew to incorporate other aspects and other Divisions of Sarawak, Sabah and countries in Borneo.
Kuching Talk eventually evolved into BorneoTalk in 2008.
“Borneo Talk is all about passion! Passion for Sarawak in particular and Borneo as a whole and I wanted to share them with the world,” said Ivy, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, during a recent interview in conjunction with the publication’s 11th year anniversary.
“The main goal of the magazine is to feature interesting destinations, their histories and showcase the wonders of nature, the various cultures and traditions of the people, so that more people will know about them.”
The magazine is essentially a platform to disseminate information – a magazine packed with information aimed at creating awareness on every aspect of Sarawak in particular and Borneo in general, such as education, sports, fashion, health, food, places to visit and accommodation.
She said: “We work closely with the State to highlight its objectives and are the source of information regarding its policies and the civil service.
We work together with the State’s tourism industry to create awareness about Sarawak not only among locals but also, and especially, those in other countries. The Ministry provides us with programmes of events and we feature them in our preceding issue.”
In every issue, the “Foreword” page seeks to highlight the “who’s who” in the State cabinet and other distinguished personalities. This, according to Ivy, is to introduce them to foreign visitors as well as locals.
With its 45 th issue due in July, the publication is a “reader-supported” magazine where merchants, clients and readers pay to have their products featured and written about in high definition print, in 78 colourful pages. The cost goes to writing, printing and the production and also to travelling in search of articles to write about and photographs.
A free magazine endorsed by Sarawak Tourism and Tourism Malaysia with 25,000 in hard-copy prints on every issue, BorneoTalk is distributed to various locations including tourist information centres throughout Malaysia, hotels, airports, malls, bookstores and MAS Golden Lounges. Recently, Yogyakarta, Indonesia was added to the list of locations where BorneoTalk is distributed. The public can also subscribe to their mailing list at www.borneotalk.com to receive a digital copy of the magazine at no cost at all. Alternatively, every single issue of their magazine is available to read and download online at www.borneotalk.com/download.php.
On Oct 26, 2015 the BorneoTalk Privilege Card was launched to the public, providing the bearer access to a life-time of privileges and by which to get discounts at more than 100 merchant outlets registered with BorneoTalk.
As it heads into its 45 th issue, Ivy is proud of the direction the magazine has gone into since it was first published. Most importantly, she would like to continue to promote her beloved state and Borneo to the rest of the world.
“We are just writers, photographers, designers who put the pages together and deliver for the public to read and browse through. The entire BorneoTalk team share the same passion, that is to showcase Borneo to the world,” she said.
