Expatriates' needs give birth to thriving online business

AsiaXPAT.com is a one-stop shop for expatriates coming to Asia. Whether they need information on property, travel, relocation companies, finding a maid, classified advertisements or readers' advice on any subject, this is the site. And access is free to its nearly 500,000 monthly visitors.

Like so many internet-based companies, founder and managing director Paul Luciw has had to blaze his own trail, adapting the business model as the site has developed.

It was wanderlust, he says, that first brought him to Hong Kong in 1991 from north Ontario, Canada, determined to do something different.

After a stint as a physical education teacher, he teamed up with some Canadian ice-hockey-playing friends who managed property-related projects for an investment fund.

That provided the germ of the asiaXPAT.com idea: generating revenue from property advertisements for the expatriate market. 'The big developers had all the luxury stuff and locals didn't rent,' he explains.

Getting Shama serviced apartments as clients early on was a stroke of luck. 'It worked for them and they've stayed for years,' Mr Luciw says, adding that he has always believed the internet is a better medium to display property than print. Now the site's special property ad alerts have 'every bell and whistle' imaginable.