The newly launched Brunch Weekend, an event running June 18-19 and 25-26 in Shanghai and Beijing, offers a good opportunity for those who love to dine out. (Photo provided to China Daily)
Despite the popularity of the event, which has spread to eight cities with Restaurant Week, Brunch Weekend and the premium Elite Dining Week, some participating restaurants have questioned its effectiveness at bringing repeat customers for regular-priced meals.
Schreurs, however, insists that if the diners are not coming back after the promotion, "It means there is something wrong with the experience. You cannot blame the platform," he says.
He also notes that Restaurant Week is not like other discount sites or Dianping.com, the most popular listing website in China with more than 250 million users, which also sells groupons. While most discount websites take a commission from each meal sold, he says Dining City makes a profit by charging membership fees from each restaurant.
The biggest change he has seen in the local dining industry is the diversity of cuisines offered and how local people embrace them at an amazing speed.
Some diners book 10 restaurants within the Restaurant Week in order to try different types of cuisines, he says.
While Italian restaurants remain the biggest category on the site, Schreurs says, steakhouses are the fastest-growing category.
