SANDAKAN: As the final ingredients are put in place for the first Sandakan Food Festival (SFF) 2017, the local food and tourism community are excited about the confirmation of important food writers and bloggers travelling to the town of Sandakan.
According to the festival coordinator, Anton Ngui, considerable effort had been put into organising the first multi-cultural and largest Sandakan food platform by the Sandakan Tourism Association (STAN).
“Two seasoned travel and food bloggers from China who feature strongly on the Sina.com blog platform will be visiting.
“From Shanghai, Newpepsibear is a highly popular travel and food blogger, with a quarter of million followers on his Sina and Weibo accounts. With over 100 million hits on his blog since its inception, Newpepsibear is also a travel column contributor to the United States National Tourism office as well as the Sendai City (Japan) Tourism Office.
“Summerdejia is a social media influencer on Sina blog and Weibo, but she also publishes her own cook book, a true food lover. With nearly 300,000 following on her blog and 80,000 followers on her Weibo account, her blog has garnered more than 35 million hits since its creation. Summerdejia hails from Beijing, China,” Anton said.
From Singapore, there will be a team from Sethlui.com. Seth has a wealth of experience in the food and beverages industry, an ex-bartender as well as owner of numerous food and beverages businesses over the years.
Seth is a now a food retail entrepreneur and consultant, and his site is an important part of his brand. His blog sees around 600,000 unique visitors a month, with over 1.5 million impressions and is one of the highest traffic food blogs in Singapore.
Further food specialists and writers are expected to confirm their attendance at the SFF in the coming weeks, as the team at STAN continues to bring the best of Sandakan to the international audience.