Finding the Best Food in China

Simon Pan has been in the Internet business since he left U.K.-based public relations firm Weber Shandwick in 2000. Inspired by his expat friends, Pan decided to start Best Food in China (www.bestfoodinchina.net) to bring information about Chinese restaurants to English speakers. With a team of volunteer food critics, the website now covers more than 1,000 Chinese and western restaurants in hopes to bridge the cultural gap between foreigners and their mainland neighbors.

JLM: How did you start Best Food in China (BFIC)?

Simon Pan: We started by appealing to local restaurants because we believe there is a huge need among expatriates and tourists to find good food.

JLM: How big is your team?

Pan: So far, we have almost 40 people from 13 different countries. Of course, we have people from China. We also have people from the five main English speaking countries along with people from Europe including Germany, Austria, Belgium and Holland, and people from Singapore and Malaysia in Asia.

We have about thirty writers: 15 in Shanghai, 15 in Beijing and one in Hangzhou.

JLM: Where are the restaurants that you cover?

Pan: We cover more than 1,000 premium restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Hong Kong. Later on, very probably, we will enter Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

JLM: Are you targeting mostly expats and higher-income Chinese or do you also engage average Chinese citizens?

Pan: In the end, we are going to target all kinds of people. Now we are starting from the concept of fine dining because it's easier to be in that high-level market.

JLM: Is your site bilingual?

Pan: The website is purely in English, but we do publish bilingual content in our e-newsletter. Even though the majority of our users are expatriates, we translate select stories into Chinese for our local restaurant partners.

JLM: Is BFIC like an English, expat-focused version of Chinese restaurant review website Dianping.com?

Pan: Kind of. But we are slightly different from Dianping. Dianping is more like Zagat. It's an aggregation of varying, anonymous points of view. That model works pretty well in local markets, where people are familiar with cultural standards, but for cross-cultural communication I don't think it works as well. That's why Zagat is doing well in U.S. but having a hard time penetrating the Asian market.

BFIC Critic Duncan Rickelton: Another characteristic of that kind of model is that it tends to focus on the most popular choices, leaving the rest to waste away at the bottom. At BFIC, we put out one review after another, rather than ranking them by popularity.

Pan: We created the model, the so-called complementary visit model, so as to give people more comprehensive information about restaurant quality, service and environment. We have a few navigation features introducing, for example, price range, food style and meal purpose, whether the restaurant is good for business banquets, gatherings among friends or family dinners.

Rickelton: In the reviews, we are talking not only about the food, but a cultural experience.

JLM: Do you offer anything besides web content?

Pan: Apart from online content, we also organize offline community events. Our parties attract both Chinese and foreigners. We organize events like cooking show parties and had a beer party last weekend.

We organize events independently and in partnership. We just finished a party with a yoga center, a wine company and an asset management company.

JLM: How do you find event partners?

Pan: They are my friends. We have event partners and content partners. Content partners are basically through proactive pitching.

JLM: What kind of marketing strategy are you using?

Pan: First is media exposure. We distribute our content to 10 English and local media including China Daily; Rayli (www.rayli.com.cn), the largest women's media in China; China Business Focus, which is an Australian Chinese business magazine; and Here is China (www.hereischina.com), an inbound travel portal in China.

Our second channel is our e-newsletter, which is circulated to expatriates, elites like multinational company staff in China and also restaurant and hotel customers. The third channel is actually offline events.

JLM: Have you thought of how to monetize the site in the long term?

Pan: So far, we are like a voluntary organization, but our model basically depends on sponsorship from restaurants and hotels. Some customers ask us to write editorial for seasonal promotions. We also use Dianping's proven e-coupon model.

Dianping started in 2003. Their main revenue sources are firstly, paid-search like Google (Nasdaq:GOOG), and secondly, e-coupons. We are thinking of new ways to utilize our space by publishing seasonal menus in our newsletter.

JLM: Do your sponsors pay on monthly or quarterly memberships or is it piecemeal?

Pan: Our biggest challenge right now is convincing our customers to start paying for services aside from those that we used to provide for free. Our strategy is to regularly provide limited-time, low price services and raise the price little by little every month or every two weeks. So far, it works well.

JLM: Of the 1,000 restaurants on your site, what percentage is paying customers?

Pan: It's very little.

JLM: Less than 10%?

Pan: Less, less. The Internet is a world of scale and volume. Our number one priority will be driving the volume of restaurant reviews and other content. We are very excited to monetize our business model by creating more value for our customers, in terms of both social value and commercial value. Our third priority is the marketing strategy which is to achieve maximum exposure of BFIC.