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Expat
To Promote Regions Using Web Portal Business Project
American Nicholas Labenskyj says he
is currently developing a network of Web portals
to promote regions outside Ukraine's capital,
which, he adds, are not frequently visited by
foreigners.
KIEV, Ukraine -- During the 15 years
that Nicholas Labenskyj has lived in Ukraine, he has
done everything from construction to running a marriage
agency. Now the 60-year-old New York native jokes that
he is "too old for prostitution" and devotes most of his
time to promoting Ukraine's many other
attractions.
Ukraine Plus Group, a company founded by
Labenskyj, is currently developing a network of Web
portals that will eventually carry tourist information
about each of Ukraine's regional centers.
"I do this because nobody else does,"
said Labenskyj, who started his Web business two years
ago with the launch of an English-language Internet site
about Ukraine's capital called
kievukraine.info.
Spurred by heightened interest in
Ukraine from his Western friends following the Orange
Revolution, the Kyiv-based Ukrainian-American then set
up his own news blog in January 2005. As the popularity
of his blog grew, Labenskyj decided to turn it into a
more ambitious project consisting of 22 information
portals available in English and Russian and covering
the country's major cities, including one on Kyiv, which
would carry information ranging from accommodation
options to business opportunities.
"It seems that everything in the country
that is beyond Kyiv still remains a mystery for a
foreigner, and there are so many things to do in Ukraine
that hardly anyone knows about," Labenskyj
said.
"It's not only skiing in the Carpathians
or swimming in beautiful Crimea that foreigners don't
know about," according to Labenskyj, who hopes his
websites will shed light on other exciting things one
can do in Ukraine.
"You can ride a tank, you can shoot a
rocket, and you can even get behind the controls of a
fighter plane in Ukraine," Labenskyj confided
mischievously, noting that the latter activity is
available for those willing to spend $1,000 for a
half-hour flight.
But while information for extreme
addicts is still in the works, everything else that is
potentially interesting for foreigners coming to Ukraine
is already on Ukraine Plus Group's first three fully
operational websites, which are dedicated to Kyiv, Lviv
and Odessa.
Each of the sites features one news
story linked to Labenskyj's news blog on Ukraine, a
daily editor's pick that deals with Ukrainian culture
and offers basic city guide information. Labenskyj said
that his blog serves as a news service for his sites and
contains stories from international news agencies and
European newspapers, which he doesn't get permission to
use. "So far, nobody complained," he said, adding that
he tries to pick only positive stories.
"It may not be correct journalism, but I
want to present Ukraine's better face," he
said.
Profitable
business
A desire to present Ukraine's best sides
ties in with the business opportunities linked to
Labenskyj's Web project, which he created to attract
more tourists and foreign investors to
Ukraine.
The curt New Yorker said an opportunity
to make money on advertising is not the only attractive
business side to his project.
"As part of our Web site, we also rent
apartments, offer flat renovation, consulting and
translation services, and we pick up and drop off our
clients from the airport," said Labenskyj, who admits
it's much easier to develop such a business in Ukraine
than in the Unites States, where each of the services
would have to be registered under separate business
entities.
And despite the monetary prospects, it's
also just fun to do, Labenskyj said.
"We do want to make money on these
sites, but we also want to expand tourism in Ukraine,"
said Labenskyj, who claims his Kyiv site -
www.kyivplus.com - gets over 100,000 unique visitors
every month. The Russian version of the site boasts only
a fraction of this figure, he noted, as the
English-language site is advertised on many other
websites, including Google and MSN.
Kyivplus is not rated by any of the
Ukrainian Web portals, but is listed on META web portal,
Labenskyj said.
"If you want to go to most major cities
in Europe and get on the Internet, you'll see that the
informational websites about them are professionally
done, and that's what we want to do here," he
said.
Similar websites on major European
cities, however, don't have photos of attractive women
on their front pages, as Labenskyj's do.
The Diaspora businessman, nevertheless,
denied that he is in the marriage agency
business.
"I gave this up a while ago, as I
discovered that too many men were coming to Ukraine,
especially Americans who are not serious about getting
married." Still, Labenskyj said he receives about five
calls a week with inquiries about dating services in
Ukraine.
"I refer them to my partner - a
Ukrainian woman who manages a dating agency," Labenskyj
explained.
Other expatriates who run similar
informational sites on Ukraine and Kyiv say they
position their projects differently and are not afraid
of competition.
For example, German Beate Schober and
Czech Anna Ramboushkova run a site called
www.go2kiev.com.ua.
Schober said one of the biggest
differences between their site and Labenskyj's project
is that their site does not have a trace of dating
services."We are two foreign
women, our target audience is a serious one, and we
would not like to associate ourselves with anything like
dating or escort," said Schober.
by Yulianna Vilkos, Kyiv Post
Staff WriterApr 13 2006,
01:13
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