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The Liaoning Province is located in northeastern China, bordered by Jilin Province, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Hebei Province. Liaoning serves a key link between China's northeast economic regions and also provides a gateway from Manchuria to the Eurasian Continental Bridge to the west. As the southernmost province among the three provinces in Northeast China, Liaoning boasts an excellent location on the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Gulf.
Liaoning Province covers a total land area of 145,900 square kilometers, which accounts for 1.5 percent of China's total land area. The province, with its peninsula extending into the Bohai Sea, boasts an extensive coastline of 2,178 kilometers (12 percent of China's total).
The population of Liaoning Province is 40,900,000, accounting for 3.4 percent of China's total population. It ranks 12th in terms of population among the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.
In 2004, Liaoning's GDP was 687.3 billion Yuan (US$85.27 billion), ranking 8th in the China, up 12.8 percent from the previous year. Over 2005, Liaoning's GDP was 800.5 billion Yuan (US$101.33billion), up 12.3 percent from 2004.
Europaer is a European style casual dining restaurant; it is a well-known brand in Liaoning with its famous traditional Italian style pizza, coffee and ice cream. The founder, Austrian Chinese Mr.Jianben Qu, had established its first location in his hometown of Dandong, Liaoning, in 1996, and now it has 20 outlets distributed in Anshan, Benxi, Dandong, Dalian, Fushun, Panjin, Shenyang in Liaoning, and Changchun, Jilin province.
"Pizza is a very popular Western food in China. It has been very well accepted by Chinese youth consumers who were born after the 1980's who are very loyal to our brand. Pizza may not impress the Chinese elders easily, but it has made progress. Everybody knows that Pizza Hut has great success in China; they've opened more than 200 restaurants and every location has very good business. Pizza business is still new in the Northeast, and it has more opportunities in this market, " said Mr. Guang Yang, who is Vice General Manager.
"We are not only serving customers the European style food, but also trying to build a similar kind of culture and atmosphere as seen in Europe in our restaurants. Our slogan is: ‘The distance between you and Europe is the distance between you and Europaer.' We serve original Italian style pizza; we chose the classical Italian pizza recipe and import pizza sauce, cheese, spices and some other ingredients from Italy. Our ovens are custom designed pizza deck ovens made in Italy," Yang said. "We offer more than just Italian style pizzas here; we have things like supreme pizzas, roast duck pizzas and Austrian garden pizzas, etc. Our best selling pizza is the beef topping pizza. We also have one called "Roma Holiday" and it's one that has four different flavors. This four-in-one pizza is very popular. In Europaer, every pizza is made with fresh dough, the best cheese, the best pizza sauce and the freshest ingredients…guaranteed. Our company has two food distributing centers and distribute food to all of our stores. This keeps the food quality consistent, which is the most important. But we do have a trouble in finding good food distributors and equipment suppliers here and we really don't have much to choose from. Imported foods are pretty high. We also offer delivery and carryout service, but most of our business comes from dine-in."
"Our prices are very affordable. The average ticket per customer is about RMB 30 (US$ 3.85). We try to keep the price low so more people can afford to come and try our food. If they like the food they'll come more often. The price is also important to our consumers; most people are average income earners here and they don't like to spend too much to try something different. A good dining experience doesn't means you have to pay the highest price. Good service is other key reason to our success. We make sure that our customers will have the best service with the best food. Treat your customers with honesty, a true heart and a good attitude and that will keep them with you," Yang stressed.
"The location is also very important for restaurants like us. We chose our locations in very busy shopping districts and shopping malls. Our major consumers are young ladies between the ages of 20 to 30, and most of them are office workers and students. They also bring their friends and family to our restaurant; it helps bring more business. Family groups consume a lot more than before. We are very busy on weekends, especially during holidays. A lot of our customers come to here because of the atmosphere, the business is also quite good in the afternoons; they come here to take a break, for a meeting or for a date, they like have small portion of pizza snack, ice cream or some coffee." Yang said.
"We do TV commercials during the holidays and during special events, and also advertise in the local newspapers and magazines, and distribute flyers in select residential areas. We do a lot of promotions with department stores, too. If their customers spend a certain amount at the department store, the customer can win a free coupon of Europaer, such as free coffee, free ice cream or a discount on the deal. We also do this kind promotion with banks, supermarkets and our other partners. Europaer offers VIP cards to valued customers and they can get a 20 percent discount when they visit any of our locations."
"In 10 years we have created 20 restaurants through a lot of hard work. We have tried to establish the No.1 brand of European style casual dining restaurant in China. The economic growth is very fast here and the consumer ability is rising with it. The market here may not compare with Beijing or Shanghai, but it has very strong potential; we are very confidant with the market in northeast China. Right now we have 20 locations and all of them are corporate stores. We plan to start franchising in the later half of 2007. Our goal is to reach 100 stores by 2009 in northeast China, which includes Liaoning, Jinlin and Heilongjiang provinces. By 2016, we plan to have one thousand stores in China nationwide."
To learn more about Europaer, please visit www.europaer.com.cn. If you are interested in the Chinese pizza market, please contact Weihua Watson at weihua@pmq.com . Visit PMQ China's website at www.pmq.cn .
