Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 26 (IANS): In a keenly fought online contest, the state's tourism department has selected 25 of the world's leading travel bloggers from 13 countries to write on Kerala.

This is a first-of-its-kind initiative taken by Kerala to promote its tourism.

All the 25 bloggers would travel across the state on board "Kerala Blog Express". The journey would begin March 10 from here and finish March 25.

"The contractual obligation of the bloggers is that they would have to write on Kerala (good and bad) once they return," Tourism Secretary Suman Billa told reporters here Wednesday.

The selection was done through an online voting method in which 600 bloggers from across the world participated.

"Participation was from 80 countries and the winners include four from the US and India, three each from Brazil, the Philippines, two each from Germany, Spain and Indonesia, and one each from Denmark, Mexico, Poland, Italy and Portugal," added Billa.