Name of your website?China Business Traveller
Your name?
Spencer Jan
Your Location (city, etc)
Shanghai
Please give us a short summary of your website?
China Business Traveller is a travel info center for people travelling to China for business. I share personal experiences, informative information, and tips as they relate to business travel to China.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I have travelled China for 10 years and have been on expat assignment for the past four years (Suzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai). I've learned a lot along the way. Most of my lessons I learned the hard way. I thought it would be the right thing to do to put down everything I've learned on a website for others to learn from. I enjoy China, travelling China, and business. So I decided to make China Business Traveller. I hope to help others make the most out of China.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I first launched China Business Traveller in Aug of 2008. I'm still working on it and hope to continue adding useful information daily.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I tried to keep it straight forward. There are a lot of China travel sites but most of them are for tourists. So I added in 'Business' in my website name to let people know my website is business related. I think the name speaks for itself.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
I'm actually NOT trying to sell ANYTHING. It's totally for information sharing purposes and is non-commercial. Another difference is that 99% of the content is written by myself. I've traveled China for the past 10 years and for the most part, my travels have been business related. So I speak from experience.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I hope to build it up to where other China business travellers can contribute their experiences as well. I find there's so much out there to be shared. I hope I'll be able to build a platform to allow people to share what they have to offer. Everyone has something to offer.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Like I said, I'm not doing this for money. It's a portal I use to draw conclusions from my past China travel experiences. An outlet to summarize what I've been through. I spend a lot of time on it, the rewards are not monetary ones.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I'd pay for other successful business travellers to share their experiences with others. Their experiences are valuable and ought to be shared with others who are just learning what doing business in China is about.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Maybe, maybe not. But I hope I get there to deal with that possible headache then.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Learning HTML. I'm not a computer programmer by any means. I just like writing. So I'm not excited when I have to learn 'nerdy' stuff.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Trying to figure out where to begin and where to focus my time on. There are so many aspects to China business travel that I've just barely skimmed the surface of a handful of topics.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I promote it by posting in relevant forums. Actually, I don't promote a lot. I just write good useful info and people come.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I didn't think many people would visit it but I was wrong. People like learning and I hope my visitors are able to take something away from China Business Traveller.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
It's been up for four months now and I tend to keep it up indefinitely.
Can your visitors contribute to your site?
YES!!!! In fact, I wish more would. If you have something to share, a story, an idea, a fact or two, or just a comment please use my contact me page and I'll post your comment for others to see.
www.china-business-traveller.com
What is your website address?
China Business Traveller
