American travel blogger 'silenced' at Pakistan Tourism Summit for being too critical

Alex Reynolds believes that Pakistan is not an easy country to travel in

American travel blogger Alex Reynolds, who runs the blog Lost With Purpose was due to speak at the Pakistan Tourism Summit last month but her speech was cancelled at the very last minute. She recently shared a 15-minute clip on her travels in Pakistan.

Organisers believed her opinions were too critical of the country and didn't quite fit the summit's agenda. Therefore, she was forced to find an alternate platform to share her thoughts: Facebook.

She begins the video by giving a little background and sharing that she has been visiting Pakistan since 2016 and this was her fifth visit to the country. "I'm just some freaky girl on the internet who likes helping people travel to Pakistan."

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She further explained, "The other week, I was supposed to present at the Pakistan Tourism Summit. The subject? Social media and how it can affect Pakistan's perception. The organisers just wanted me to talk about how awesome Pakistan is and how great my experience has been."

"If people are at a travel summit, presumably they already know that Pakistan's pretty cool. So what's the point of preaching to the choir?" She questions. "Instead, I decided to be a little bit more critical and came up with a talk on how social media coverage of Pakistan right now is actually dangerous for the future of the country's tourism. And of course, what we can do about it."

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"The people at the tourism summit, weren't ready for real talk, but I know some of you are" she stated. "Luckily, we live in the internet era. If a voice is silenced in one place, it can simply appear in another."

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