CityNow!

Why ?
Chiang Mai currently receives over three and a half million tourists per year, one and a half million of which are foreign. The city is the perfect base to explore the wonders of the north of Thailand; its lush mountains, its rich culture, its historical heritage and its abundance of activities on offer.

According to TAT's latest statistics, tourists to Chiang Mai spend a mere 1.7 days here with an average expenditure of 3,200 baht per day. These figures do not compare favourably to tourist statistics in Phuket where tourists stay for an average of nearly six days and spend more than 4,000 baht per day.

One of the reasons that tourists visit Chiang Mai for such a short amount of time is that they are unaware of all that Chiang Mai has to offer. The attractions, which the majority of tourists are driven to, are limited to elephant camps, shopping, temples and a few other more prominent privately run tourist businesses. Smaller businesses and organisations are unable to afford the marketing and lack the know-how to reach this market.

What
CityNow! hopes to achieve is to be a comprehensive source of information to tourists on what happenings and events they can look forward to in the fortnight to come. Monthly tourist magazines are unable to effectively fill this role as Chiang Mai's events marketing and public relations personnel are as yet unable to effectively promote their events to the right people, or far enough in advance for monthly publications' deadlines.

Therefore, a bi-monthly publication, which is fun, informative and printed in large numbers to be strategically distributed for free will help to not only attract tourists to stay longer to visit upcoming events, but will also help spread tourist expenditure outwards.

We also believe that a comprehensive and professional resource of information will be popular for tourists who are not only looking for advertisers' guide books which is what is widely available in Chiang Mai at present.

What ?
CityNow! is a full coloured A1 poster which can be folded into sixteen panels of information. 20,000 copies will be printed every two weeks. Relevant information for tourists such as a directory of important phone numbers, a map of the city highlighting key attractions and offices as well as a weekly calendar will be included.

We expect to promote up to 50 events per fortnight such as art exhibitions, temple fairs, festivals & sporting events.

To submit an event please either fill in the form in our Events Calendar or send an email to contact@city-now.com.

Logistics
A list of delivery points which will receive the publication every second Friday is provided here. The deadline for CityNow!'s content would be every second Thursday with two days for production and a further five days for printing.

Sponsorship
A bi-monthly advertisement which will reach out to tens of thousands of tourists, expatriates and English speaking Thais that is of a high quality can be of great benefit to any company wishing to advertise itself in the northern city. Organisations such as TAT are also benefiting by promoting other events happening throughout the Kingdom, further encouraging tourists to stay within Thailand or taking copies of CityNow! to be distributed at other key tourist points in the Kingdom in order to draw them to the northern city.

Contact sales@city-now.com.

Who are we ?
When John Hobday, John Cadet and my father John Shaw started Citylife (The Chiang Mai Newsletter as it was then named) over fourteen years ago, the magazine was more of a hobby for a group of friends who wanted to create a local source of English language news and information, than a business. 2,500 copies of the two-coloured publication were printed every month and the news, events and stories featured provided an essential, if basic, forum of information for the then small expatriate community.

When I got involved with the publication seven years ago Chiang Mai already had a few English language publications and it was then that we began the metamorphosis which led us to go online in 1998, start printing in full colour in 2001 then change the name to Citylife in 2002. And when restaurants and bars were opening up so fast we couldn't keep up with featuring them we published the Citylife Guide to Wining, Dining, Pubbing & Clubbing in 2002 and again in 2004, which featured well over 450 businesses. Regular readers may have noticed that the magazine has been striving to keep up with this now dynamic and rapidly growing city.

Recently we have felt some frustration with the speed of which Chiang Mai has become such a hive of activity, - concerts, exhibitions, sports competitions, fairs, grand sales, parties and galas are everyday occurrences - being a monthly publication we felt limited in our capacity to fully bring these events to your attention. That is why we approached the Tourism Authority of Thailand with the idea of CityNow!

I hope that you find CityNow! useful and would be most grateful for any kind of feedback so that we can develop it to best suit your needs. If you have events of any sort please feel free to send us the information and we will do our best to include it in the forthcoming publication.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to CityNow!, Chiang Mai and the north of Thailand's most comprehensive current listings guide.

Sincerely,
Pim Kemasingki
Director/Managing Editor