4 Contenders, 4 Professional Coaches, and 4 Cities Across Asia! Be Part of the First-ever Search for the AirAsia Best Travel Photographer 2015!

Four Filipino contenders will travel in four key cities around Asia together with award-winning photographers to vie for over 200,000 pesos AirAsia BIG Points that are up for grabs! From the chosen four Filipino contenders, one of them will be hailed as the first ever AirAsia Best Travel Photographer!

This year marks the first AirAsia and Nikon’s search for Best Travel Photographer. Will it be a car salesman, a front office agent, an executive assistant, or a barista? Who will be stepping out of their comfort zones and into the challenges of becoming the first AirAsia Travel Photographer for 2015?


The photo contest is jointly organized by AirAsia and ThinkDharma Inc. (exclusive distributor of Nikon Digital Cameras) in partnership with AirAsia's global loyalty programme, "BIG" which will award winners with over 200,000 BIG Points or its equivalent free flights to any AirAsia Group's 100 destinations.

The four pre-selected contestants will be travelling across Asia for one week starting on July 21, 2015. Each contender will be assisted by multi-awarded photographers from the Philippines and Malaysia as their personal coach. Online voting via www.airasiatravelphotographer.com will be opened to the public on August 20, 2015 with Nikon cameras and BIG Points to be given away to lucky online voters. The grand winner will be announced on September 11, 2015.

It was launch last week and was attended by the AirAsia Philippines Chairperson Maan Hontiveros. Chief Executive Officer Joy Cañeba was also there to launch the exciting contest with Strategic Partnership Head Jenny Au and Senior Marketing Manager Caroline Wong of AirAsia BIG. ThinkDharma Inc., meanwhile, is represented by Abrigo Merin, Chief Executive Officer of OPAL, and Paolo Salazar, Head of Business Unit. This will be part of its commitment in making travel more affordable, convenient and accessible to all including the low fares that lie in their promise of "Now Everyone Can Fly." As a proof, they've be awarded the "World’s Best Low-Cost Airline" for 7 years running in Skytrax's World Airline Awards.

Each contender was surprised and amazed with the assigned country, some are first time to travel internationally and some have been to that country but still have no idea how they will capture the best photos that fall in each category.

The four multi-awarded photographers and respected leaders in the industry will be part of the AirAsia Travel Photographers contest as mentors or coaches of the four contestants. Nikon Pros George Tapan will be mentoring Sarah Garcia (Front Office Agent), Raymond Cruz will be mentoring TJ Nepomuceno (Marketing Professional – Car Salesman), Parc Cruz will be mentoring Paul Delfin (Barista), and AirAsia’s resident photojournalist Adam Lee will be mentoring Velvet Lagman-Macasaet (Executive Assistant to the SVP & Country Manager). All of them will be traveling around exotic places in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to help contestants capture their best entries across a range of categories that include landscape, food, portrait, architecture and travel.

4 contenders, 4 professional coaches, and 4 cities across Asia! Be part of the first-ever search for the AirAsia Best Travel Photographer and get a chance to win 100,000 AirAsia BIG Points and Nikon 1 J5 camera! Visit www.airasiatravelphotographer.com to know more!

Keep updated with AirAsia Best Travel Photographer contest by following the hashtag #IamAirAsiaTravelPhotographer and get the latest updates via AirAsia Philippines' Twitter (twitter.com/AirAsiaPh) and Facebook (facebook.com/AirAsiaPhilippines) accounts.

Article and photos were taken by Ace Paragoyo, Pinoy AdvenTurista's official representative to the Air Asia Best Travel Photographer Launch held last July 16, 2015 in Bonifacio Global City.