Expique is One

Looking back at the first year and the year to come

Written by Team Expique
Published: February 10, 2015

This week sees Expique celebrate its first birthday. A year ago I had a vision to create a range of unique experiences in and around Bangkok, starting with walking tours and tuk tuk tours. One year on I reflect back to see what Expique has achieved and whether the vision stays the same.

Birthday time at Expique

At the time of launch, Thailand was going through a political crisis and people were questioning why I was starting a Bangkok focused tour company at such a time! While it may have slowed us down a bit, we are now firmly on the way to establishing ourselves and I can happily look back at what Expique has achieved.

Here are some of the highlights of the first year:

Expique website goes live (Feb 2014)

Getting our first paying customer just a week after we launched – Thank you James (Feb 2014)

Finding Namo (April 2014). No, Namo is not a lost fish. Namo is the one who keeps the guides happy who in turn keep the customers happy. And happy customers is what keeps me happy!!!!!

Moving into the new Expique office which is our oasis in the middle of the urban jungle (May 2014)

Moving into the Top 10 of activity providers in Bangkok on TripAdvisor (December 2014)

Reaching the total of 33 customers and 15 tuk tuks in one night – and realizing that in that night we provided a daily salary for 15 drivers, 3 guides, 2 staff, and carrots for 2 bunnies (Feb 2015)

Building relations with the local vendors and people we meet every day on our tours to the extent that they sing happy birthday to customers! (ongoing)

With these behind us there is a lot more to come in the next year. Our goals for the year ahead are

1) To make a difference

2) To get tastier

3) To get more amazing

4) To get more innovative

5) To become a bigger and even friendlier family

It may not be exactly clear what we mean by the above goals, but hopefully they will become clear over the next year. We want to keep some surprises. We have a lot of things in the works which we hope you will see over the next few months. Do watch this space.

What remains is for me to say thank you to all those who have supported during the last year.

Of course we thank every customer who has been on a tour with us and especially those who have helped by spreading the word both through word of mouth and TripAdvisor.

I have had the pleasure of working with several great guides who have all added their own little elements to the Expique story. Especially I thank guides Natt, Esso, Jib, Taum and Moo who have consistently and continue to show our customers what an amazing place Bangkok is.

However, it is the people behind the scenes who are owed an especially big thank you. So a big thanks to Namo, Sunisa, Nutch, P, Som and Leo!