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The current - 3rd quarter of 2005 -
'Koh Chang and Eastern Islands' guide comprises 64, A5 pages. A handy size to pick up and browse
through. The guide is free, being paid for by advertising revenue.
The main reason to pick up this guide is for the excellent maps - the most
accurate and most up to date that you'll find in any guide, online or in
print. Although, our place isn't yet listed on the Klong Prao map -
maybe I pissed the owner off somewhere along the line :-)
As you'd expect from an ad-driven
magazine the content sticks solely to factual information and a usual
smiley, happy tone that guarantees that nothing derogatory or even the
slightest bit negative will be said about anyone who pays for an advert.
A quick look at the new 'Real Estate' section shows a couple of adverts for
well overpriced properties that no sane person would go near.
Accommodation and Restaurant listings should serve the purpose to help
people decide where to eat or drink. However, as you need to have paid
for an ad to just get a mention and all the accommodation sounds inviting
and all the restaurants serve delicious food you're actually no wiser than
you would have been if you'd have just looked at the map and picked a place
to dine out or lay your head at random.
It adds up to a pretty informative, but
uninspiring read. The formula is successful though with the print run
apparently being increased to 15,000 copies per issue. A figure, which
for a free magazine is very high. Higher than the actual, rather than
claimed, print runs for a couple of the well known Bangkok guides and free
magazines.
So who advertises, and what types of ad
are there? Dive schools, snorkelling tours, hotels and less popular
bungalow resorts plus numerous restaurants and, of course, tailors shops
provide the lions share of advertisers. Here are a few of the ads from
the current issue:
In what must rank as
one of the strangest decisions the management of a 3 star resort could make,
The Hillside Hotel on White Sand Beach apparently decided that enough couples and
families weren't booking in to their hotel and therefore switched tack.
The new advert has
been designed to appeal to the 'Single guy in Pattaya with loads of
disposable income and who doesn't care about the location of his hotel so
long as he can get laid' demographic. Questions as to why the girls
have 80s style 'big hair', just how uncomfortable that pose actually is and
which bar these twin Thai hotties work at can be addressed to the
management of Hillside Hotel.
 My
nomination for the 'Best Resort Logo' would go to Coral resort, Kai Bae.
Nice to see some thought and effort being put into signage design -
now if only the same could be said of the current bungalows then they'd be
onto a winner.
 Koh
Chang International Clinic is part of the Bangkok Hospital group and they
provide western standard medical care for anyone with a credit card of a
good insurance policy. So, are all emergency procedures carried out
within the confines of what appears to be a caravan or at best a small
mobile home? It would appear so from the advert. |
