Bangkok Hotels, Bali Hotels, Phuket Hotels, Hotel Travel Tour Packages, Worldwide Hotel and more... |
|
ADVERTISEMENT |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||
|
|
||||||||||||
About Us | Press Room | ||
 |
||
|
Digital gold-mine dream still alive June 19, 2006 Seven years on, Mono Group's Soraj hopes to turn profit soon Seven years ago, Soraj Asavaprapa left his investment-banking career to launch a multitude of dot.com ventures with Pete Bodharamik, the only son of Jasmine International's founder, Adisai Bodharamik. Their dream was to discover a "digital" gold mine. Although seven years have gone by, the Internet bubble has burst and several hundred millions of baht have been spent, their Mono Group is still not producing a profit. However, Soraj says he is now "more confident than ever" that his digital vision will soon be realised. "It's been harder and longer than I thought," said Soraj, 41, "but today I'm even more confident." After receiving a doctoral degree in business administration from the International University in San Diego, Soraj joined Thai finance company Phatra Thanakit, now known as Phatra Finance. As an assistant vice president for investment banking, Soraj was instrumental in achieving many mega-deals, including a public offering by PTT Exploration and Production Plc, the initial public offering of Thai Petrochemical Industry, and project financing for the Nam Theun hydroelectric project in Laos. However, the 1997 economic crisis brought an end to his career after only two years. Soraj resigned from Phatra to help his uncle set up and run V Conglomerate, which was one of only two Thai firms that remained financially healthy enough to bid for bankrupted assets later auctioned by the Financial Sector Restructuring Authority. But after making two successful bids, Soraj felt he'd had enough of investment banking. "I didn't like that kind of luxury lifestyle; making overseas trips almost every month, meeting all the high-flyers - prime ministers, deputy prime ministers, business owners and top executives. I didn't want to wear a tie every day. "More importantly, I left [investment banking] because I believed the dot.com business would prosper. And it was challenging," he said. Among his inspirations was a book entitled "Being Digital", written by a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I read it and I believed it was true," Soraj said. He discussed his ideas with Pete Bodharamik, who was his younger colleague at Phatra, and found they shared the same aspiration. Oddly, though, their first venture was not a dot.com firm, but a TV drama production company, Maya Entertainment. It produced only one drama for Channel 7. The ratings were poor so they renamed the business Mono Generation and set out to pursue dot.com business instead, riding on the dot.com boom of the time. Soraj and Pete also formed Jasmine Cyberworks, a venture capital company, and their first website Jakfree.com, which offered give-aways. Neither venture succeeded. "The timing was not right and we were innocent; we thought the world had only a bright side," Soraj said. "We tried to grab every emerging technology, hoping it would become the next goldmine." After learning their lessons, their company, Mono Group, has moved ahead, venturing into several online and offline businesses. The group has set an aggressive target of Bt1 billion in sales revenue this year, a big jump from the Bt400 million it made last year. Its e-travel business - running through many websites, including passionasia.com and hotelthailand.com - contributes the biggest chunk of revenue, with sales of Bt400 million expected this year. "Passionasia's sales revenue is now one million daily, and some days it's even Bt2 million. I think it's the largest e-commerce site in Thailand," Soraj said. "As a group, we will turn out a profit this year, or next year at the latest." At present, most e-travel customers are international tourists. Many Thai tourists visit the websites in search of information, but they still prefer to talk with real people before making a hotel booking decision, he said. Similarly, Mono Group has many community websites, including mthai.com, the fourth most popular website in Thailand, and yenta4.com, but most of their content is offered free to Internet users. "Today we're giving away our information products free to consumers. But this is a first step. Eventually, it's unavoidable that they will have to pay," Soraj said. The Mono Group divides its businesses into three major elements: digital media and content, e-commerce, and entertainment. The entertainment business includes printed magazines, which contribute content to the websites, as well as film-making for the big screen. The group has produced two movies, has three more in post-production and one is currently being shot. The Mono Group employs about 400 people and is planning to open Internet radio and TV channels later this year. While pursuing his dot.com dream, Soraj's leisure time is spent visiting good temples and monks, as well as playing soccer. He also practises meditation every day, and is a collector of swords. Perhaps this is because his mother is Japanese, because he explains: "I like collecting swords because I like the samurai; they were gentlemen and men of honour." Pichaya Changsorn -The Nation- VIRTUALLY BACK Collapse of Jasmine Cyberworks was a valuable lesson for online entrepreneur whose new ventures are providing real returns January 30, 2006 Pete Bodharamik, whose last name might ring a bell, has kept a low profile for five years, after a slump in the country's dot.com industry felled his Jasmine Cyberworks, the Internet incubator of Jasmine International Plc. The collapse of Jasmine Cyberworks with losses of about 100 million baht, might be seen by outsiders as a failure, but the only son of Adisai Bodharamik _ the founder of Jasmine International Plc and a former commerce minister _ sees it as a valuable lesson. Despite being quite an expensive one, he believes it has taught him about past management mistakes, and the reality of business. "What we are doing now is real, in that it can be measured by cash," says Pete Bodharamik. "Part of the reason for the collapse of Jasmine Cyberworks is that we held a minority stake of about 20-30% in the company, which meant we were unable to control the direction of the business, and, above all, dot.com business was such an illusion for everyone during this period," said Mr Pete, who has vowed to return to the limelight once again. After the liquidation of Jasmine Cyberworks, Mr Pete stepped out of Jasmine International _ and his father's shadow _ to set up his own business under the Mono Generation Group. Mono incorporates a variety of businesses, not just technological, but also in digital media and entertainment, e- commerce and software, online travel distribution and automobiles. "The Internet remains a great tool for doing business, particularly in cutting out the middleman, and everything _ be it the media, music, content, entertainment or trading _ is running onto the Internet," he said. The Internet drives his new company's growth, particularly for its travel distribution services. The group's operator is Passion Net, an online travel agency that uses two purpose-built websites. The first is www.passionasia.com, which deals with hotel reservations, trips and tours for customers outside Thailand, specialising in Southeast Asia. The second is www.monoplanet.com which caters to local Thai customers who want to travel domestically or internationally. Passion Net's sales have grown substantially, to 30 million baht last year from just 100,000 baht two years ago. To accommodate the growth of travel services, Mono Generation, through Passion Net, took over HotelThailand.com early last year for 10 million baht. Launched in November 1998, HotelThailand.com has an online database of more than 800 hotels and resorts throughout Thailand. It helps business or leisure travellers search for and book hotels or resorts that meet their needs and budgets. Counting the contributions from HotelThailand.com, the company's travel service sales are expected to double to 60 million baht by the end of the year. Travel services currently make up between 40% and 50% of Mono Generation's sales, which _ excluding the automobile dealership business run by Toyota PS Enterprise Co _ amounted to about 500 million baht last year. Last year, the auto dealership business generated about one billion baht in sales. According to Mr Pete, 20% of the company's sales stem from its digital media and content businesses, which cover audiotext and Internet services through two popular websites _ www.mthai.com and www.yenta4.com _ and Gossip Star, a celebrity paparazzi magazine, its filmmaking arm and TV programmes. "Although many observers say Thai filmmaking is a high-loss industry, I see an opportunity, particularly for overseas sales in home entertainment," said Mr Pete. "But it also rests on the quality of films you make." The film operations are run by Mono Film. Recent releases include The Legend of Sudsakorn (Phra Apaimanee: Sudsakorn); Vengeance (Prairee Pinart) and The Tiger Blade (Sau Khab Dab). Mr Pete said foreign markets had expressed an interest in the company's films, at local and international festivals. E-commerce and software contributions remain relatively small, although growth has been steady for Mono2u.com, an online home entertainment shopping website, www.thaisecondhand.com, for used products, and www.tarad.com. "We are very confident that we will see a profit for the first time this year on sales growth to over two billion baht in sales from Mono Generation (excluding automobiles)," said Mr Pete. "What we are doing now is real, in that it can be measured by cash. I don't see Mono Generation ending up like Jasmine Cyberworks now that I personally have looked into the details with everything we've done. Above all, every business we have must be profitable." -Bangkok Post- Clever entrepreneur offers new-concept tours, entices customers through Internet October 19, 2000 Clever Thai entrepreneur attracts customers with a new concept of tour packages, allowing travelers to design their own itineraries. The company's products range from economical, backpack-style trips to the luxurious executive-style traveling. According to Nuengnimmarn Nanakorn, PassionAsia's co-founder and director, "What we vision is that when a browser visits our web site, he'll be able to picture instantly what a dream trip is like. Using sophisticated technology, we will be able to select and offer products that fit the preferences of travelers from different countries and age groups. For instance, when an American comes into our web site, what's shown on the monitor are trips that suit the American's taste. We are capable of doing the same for other countries as well, since we have the technology to detect the browser's location and the database of traveler's preferences based on their country of origin." -ThaiPost- Online agent counting on diversity PassionAsia.com looks to turn browsers into customers and friends November 2, 2000 Exploring Thailand and Southeast Asia continues to get easier, now that travelers can book tours at their fingertips on the Internet. Siam Leisure Club Co. Ltd., in joint venture with Jasmine Cyberworks Co. Ltd., is the latest entrant in the online travel agent field, with a plan to launch PassionAsia.com in January. The goal of any online travel agent, said Nuengnimmarn Nanakorn, was to develop a relationship that would turn a visitor to the web site into a customer when booking a package tour. The customer becomes a guest when he arrives at the destination, and then a friend who wants to come back. -The Bangkok Post Online travel firm sees 'diversity' as key to high-end market October 23, 2000 Online travel business PassionAsia.com hopes to provide globetrotters with "extraordinary" travel opportunities through its high-quality and competitively priced packages in Southeast Asia, said a company spokesman. PassionAsia.com aims to tailor packages to attract a variety of customers covering all demographic groups, from individuals and couples, honeymooners and families, to the elderly and the young. The site offers a "companion" service for those traveling alone, along with a network of guides. -The Nation- Jasmine Group launched web site to attract tourists October 25, 2000 Pete Bodharamik, president of Jasmine Cyberworks, announced that the company and Siam Leisure Club has joined effort to launch an online travel business under the name of PassionAsia.com. The target market is travelers from Europe, North America, and Japan. Products offered will be a large variety of tour packages in the Southeast Asia region. The initial emphasis is on the Greater Mekong Sub-region countries, namely Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan. -Baan Muang- Jasmine pursues travel online October 20, 2000 PassionAsia.com is a web site that allows travelers to choose tour programs that best fit their preferences through the use of trip-customization. The company's products serve the tourists' increasing desire to avoid commonplace tours and to be able to select their own destinations and itineraries. -Matichon- Jasmine Group moves to open a new web site and draw tourists to the country October 20, 2000 Studies show that tour-package online purchasing has increased 300% since 1998. Moreover, Euro Leisure's research indicates that tourists' preferences differ from one country to another. For instance, the French and Spanish prefers more relaxing trips over adventurous ones while the Italians pay particular interest to the local culture. -Naew Nah Jasmine introduces PassionAsia.com, draws travelers through the Internet October 22-28, 2000 The goal of the web site is to offer tour packages of Southeast Asia region to travelers in the Internet world, which is estimated to be around 300 million worldwide. The target customer group is European travelers -- particularly Germans, Italians, and Scandinavians - Americans, and Japanese. Research shows that tourists from these countries are typically repeated visitors. -Siam Thurakit- |
||
Customer Center :
Cancellation Policy 
FAQs Privacy Policy Site Security Terms and Condition Copyrights Travel Resources
FAQs Privacy Policy Site Security Terms and Condition Copyrights Travel Resources
About Us :
Company Profile Site Map Press Room Career Opportunities Contact Us
Site Map Press Room Career Opportunities Contact Us
