Much as The Phuket News does with the native English-language speaking community on the island, Новости Пхукета (Novosti Phuketa as transliterated to English, literally News of Phuket) will be aimed at Russian language-speaking holidaymakers and residents on Phuket and the surrounding areas.
This exciting joint project will be making use of the expertise and knowledge of The Phuket News team and the skills of the Russian co-founders, most of whom are experienced media professionals.
Co-founders include Alexander Semenov, a seasoned journalist from Moscow, where he worked on Kommersant and F5, Raisa Sheludkina, property and media expert and owner of RL Media Group in Phuket, and Alexey Padalkin, well established Internet media and marketing expert, also from Moscow.
Also on board and excited about the project is Moscow businessman, property and legal expert and developer of the Vista del Mar project in Naithon, Sergey Nesterenko. Mr Nesterenko said, “Many Russians are still accustomed to reading a lot during their holidays and they tend to rely on print news, both local and international, rather than the Internet.”
He added that a lack of English-language ability was another reason for the decision to launch, “Most Russians are not proficient enough to read English newspapers and up until now there has been no regular printed Russian news media here in Phuket for the growing Russian expat community.”
Over the past two years, Phuket’s growing number of Russian visitors has seen the number of Russian tourists grown to second-highest, exceeded only by mainland
Chinese.
There have already been approximately 350,000 Russian visitors to Phuket in the
first six months of the year (15 per cent of the total 2.32 million arrivals), with that
number expeected to double by the end of 2012.
Simon Samaan, the Managing Director of Class Act Media and owner of The Phuket News, said, “With the ever-growing number of Russian tourists and expats in Phuket, I have no doubt that the Russian edition of The Phuket News will be well received within the Russian community in Phuket and beyond.
“Class Act Media is proud to be adding the Russian edition of The Phuket News to its portfolio of products and I have no doubt our clients will also see some huge benefits
with our latest offer.
“We will be sticking with our current business model of packaging and leveraging on our existing products to offer our customers cost-effective and comprehensive media solutions."