Tricky pig: Thailand's most successful travel website

Barely eight months after Benchaporn Suktrairob (35) started her weblog moohin.com, the site was one of the ten most visited websites in Thailand. Now, 10 years later, the site is listed on the stock exchange and Benchapon runs the popular travel website as director with eleven staff members.

Success is a combination of factors. Moohin.com was one of the first sites and the bloggers use colloquial language, not formal language like in newspapers.

But it didn't blow up. 'When I started my kid was 1 year old and I was a single mother. I had to ask my mother to take care of him. My plan was to earn enough money within two years to pay for his education. And now I can afford to send him to an international school.'

Ambition and perseverance are the key to her success. She learned that during her time as a member of the national youth beach volleyball team, when she was still in college. She also discovered her love for travelling, as she often went to tournaments. And she still travels: six months a year, the other six months are spent on business matters.

After she received her bachelor's degree, the love of travel continued as a salesman at the sports newspaper Siam Sports Daily. There she developed her business instinct and started writing travelogues.

The turning point came when she joined the sales team at sanook.com, one of Thailand's largest community platforms websites. At Sanook, she saw how an online business can grow and started to think about her own future on the net.

'When I was there, I was making about three million baht a month. I got three percent of that. I thought: if I start my own website now, all the profit is mine. So I decided to quit my job and registered a domain name in the US.'

For the first three months, Benchaporn settled in Kanchanaburi, a tourist destination she explored and blogged about. She chose that place because it is close to Bangkok and the journey there by minivan costs only 200 baht. In the meantime she immersed herself in Search Engine Optimization and later signed a contract with Google.

'The secret is doing what you love to do and believing in what you do. I like to travel and I want to share my experiences with others. That all reflects on the website and the people I work with.'

Last question: What does moohin? Benchaporn: 'Moo means pig in Thai. Traveling like a pig means making a simple journey where you can stop, eat something along the way, without rushing. H means difficult. So moohin is a website that shows you how to travel through a difficult, unfamiliar destination without a fixed itinerary and just enjoy your experience.'

(Source: Muse, Bangkok Post, Nov. 16, 2013; the site URL has been changed to moohin.in.th)

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