LONELY PLANET HITS THE SHELVES

Thailand's newest magazine - a Thai language licensed edition of Lonely Planet Magazine - has hit the shelves in Bangkok today.
Published by Media Expertise, part of Nation Multimedia Group, the 196-page September edition is priced at 100 baht. It's the first and only licensed overseas title in the travel magazine sector in Thailand.
For a debut edition it's extremely well advertised, with the likes of Air Asia, Canon and Mercedes-Benz occupying the premium early right-hand pages.
The one thing I am slightly perplexed about is the publishers choice to bag this first edition with a free gift. The gift itself is a low-quality Lonely Planet branded notebook that, to me, is the epitome of tackiness and looks like a last-minute afterthought. And by being bagged this all-important first edition is going to miss out on a lot of casual browsers.
That said, I've been expressing my views about the opportunities for a licensed Thai edition of an overseas travel magazine for more than three years. Food is also another sector currently devoid of an overseas local edition, but for how much longer?