Letschina: Doing business around foreigners

It is a young team with international vision. They are also a very Chinese-style project-with foreigners to Chinese-style restaurants to taste food, with foreigners to participate in Chinese-style tourism routes, and its launch of the online platform to become known to foreigners and the city of Watercress. We want to make Letschina a window for foreigners to come to China. Letschina founder Deep said. An Arabian-style dinner 9 months a weekend afternoon, Lin Shen and several of his team members arrived early in an Arabian-style restaurant on the South Bank of landmark, waiting for their friends to come here for the evening. This is the seventh time that Letschina organized after the launch of Letseat in September. Simply put, letseat is to let some strange foreigners to China's unfamiliar place to eat dinner party, while tasting the characteristics of food and play. The theme of this event is to taste the Arabian cuisine, starting 6 o'clock at night. Lin deep early dress up for a moment, put on the Arabian white robe, wear red and white plaid turban. Some of the people who attended the event came together, some came from Beijing University, there were young people who were studying abroad, and there were white-collar workers and foreigners. One of the Canadian lads has come to this stranger's dinner for the second time. Before the event began, we had twos and threes chats. One girl, writing a little note in Arabic, was ready to use it for a while, sharing the little anecdotes of learning Arabic. The subject matter requires an Arabic-speaking person who has been deliberately recruited from the Internet. 6 o'clock, all the people came together, full of two large tables. Lin Deep took off the sunglasses, everyone laughed a--it is not the Arabs ah, quite like! Activities start with the game, first learn a few simple Arabic words, and then now learn to use the game. We play together, language and action, simple and exciting, soon the atmosphere will become hot contact. Dish along the way up, Lin deep in the side to introduce each dish behind the characteristics, mixed with their own in Saudi reading experience. In fact, Letseat is just letschina one of the offline products, in addition to the characteristics of tourism, which is letschina the earliest products. Letschina also launched the online platform, trying to play the cause of foreigners in the knowledge of + watercress with the city. Letseat is the second offline service product of Letschina. We want to make Letschina a window for foreigners to come to China. Lin Shen said. Young people Letschina team can be used to describe, members across the generation, the youngest, the smallest 1996 born, the largest 1986 born, most of them are foreign language majors, some already have entrepreneurial experience. Letschina's other founder, Shi, was a 1996 stranger, and Letschina was her fourth start-up project. Team anotherA partner has done a project on the foreign kitchen in BLCU. Lin Shen himself has been the second venture, his first project is still doing: with this first bucket of gold, I can do now this project. Lin has been studying in Saudi Arabia and the United States. When he was studying in Saudi Arabia, he was chosen by the school to attend many international conferences. Lin felt that he had benefited greatly from his participation in these activities, and in his words, he had seen great things. But he also found that in these international conferences, Chinese students are very few, he felt that there should be more students to expand the international perspective, and they can bring Chinese students to the world to participate in the international conference, so there is the idea of entrepreneurship after returning home. This is what he called the first bucket of gold. Lin Shen has contacted a lot of foreigners abroad, knowing that they have a strong interest in China. After returning home, Lin Shen found that foreigners in China also want to understand and integrate into Chinese cultural life, but there is no good way. He felt vaguely that he could do something to bring foreigners to experience China's life. Lin Shen find his friend Shi, two people decided to do together Letschina. After friends joined, the Letschina team gradually had 7 people. Their first thought is to learn from the foreign short rental platform Airbnb model, to do foreigners in China homestay services. To this end, they have done a special questionnaire to see how many Chinese families are willing to receive foreign people, the feedback is not bad. But the problem soon came. Since most of the members of the Letschina team have just left school and some are even school students, the foreigners who can reach them are foreign students, so they decide to start with the foreign students market. Paradoxically, the students have settled down at school and there is no need to provide them with homestay services. Lin Shen can only think of other services. The core members of the Letschina team are Beijingers, who have a strong tradition of cultural attractions in Beijing, as well as tie-dyeing, clay, paper-cut, guqin and other characteristics of the process experience points are more understanding, Lin deep think this should be interested in foreigners. These places are relatively small, from the revenue ratio, big travel agencies generally will not go. As a result, Letschina began to do special tour line services, with foreigners for short day trips, first from Beijing. Letschina team as a tour guide, their own car rental, buy tickets, as long as more than 10 people can form a tour group to take out to play. As a member of the Chinese College of Beijing Foreign Studies University, who met some foreign friends, they quickly formed a group, and then began to send leaflets and classes in the school publicity. In the future, travel agents of the travel line products can also be sold here. Even after we have more money and more manpower, we can focus on line planning and publicity, and outsource to the local tour guide team. Lin Shen said. But tourism is not enough, this is not a high-frequency demand, can not meet the Chinese people in China's continued integration of Chinese culture needs, and can notMaintain user stickiness. So, Lin Deep thought to do online platform, but not only to put travel information, but also to integrate more information. In addition, they noted that the problems encountered by foreigners when they first came to China could not be answered on the existing platform. They think of the Letschina on the online platform to make foreigners know, where, watercress with the city, mainly provide three services: tourism, questions and answers, the same city information. The website was first made in English and Korean, Lin Shen also want to make a multilingual version. Lack of manpower is the biggest problem that Letschina encountered in the early stage. At the same time, Lin is considering whether there is a more efficient and popular way of cultural communication than offline travel, until he sees a report on EatWith in ABC News. EatWith is a dinner model of a group of diners from abroad. A statement in the report brought inspiration to the forest: EatWith is very similar to Airbnb. To the founders ' surprise, the world is much more cargo than travel enthusiasts, and this is a big platform for global travellers who are now occupied by chefs from home and even dinner-half. "To see this report the next day, Lin Shen decided to Letschina under the line to increase the special dinner service, named Letseat." Lin Shen's first position on the letseat is that strangers eat in unfamiliar places and do not specifically emphasize attracting foreigners. But he later discovered that foreigners are indeed a good starting point. The Letschina team has a better understanding of the habits of foreigners and the Chinese food culture, and can indeed offer more distinctive services. Therefore, Letseat's operation center of gravity is also gradually put on the foreign students. It turns out that every person involved has a foreigner and a Chinese, and everyone is coming to share food with a group of different people.