Hooters franchise set for expansion in China

SHANGHAI, China — Zhou Shouya is a textbook example of how a simple idea can appeal across cultures.

Dressed in a tight tank top and hip-hugging orange shorts — the uniform worn by Hooters Girls around the world — the 23-year-old law student paused from delivering sandwiches and plates of Buffalo wings at China's first Hooters franchise to say that many of her customers are regulars.

"Some people come every day. It's like a home to them," she said. "I guess they feel relaxed here."

That's one way to explain the Shanghai restaurant's success. Since opening in October 2004, "business has been consistently profitable," Marketing Director Xu Fan said, with 250 to 300 customers daily.

The owners paid Atlanta-based Hooters of America an undisclosed amount of money to franchise the brand and expect to open a second Shanghai location in April. Plans are in the works to open one or two Beijing branches by the end of the year.

"We think there's a good growth potential in China," Xu said.

If Hooters does develop from its small beginnings behind a Shanghai mall into a food and beverage force in China, it would take a page from the company's U.S. history, which began in 1983.

The founders found partners that helped the company grow far beyond the original restaurant in the Florida city of Clearwater. It now has more than 400 restaurants, including 36 foreign franchises in cities such as Lima, Peru; Interlaken, Switzerland; and Singapore.

"It's a pretty steep learning curve to take an all-American concept like Hooters and take it international," Hooters of America Marketing Vice President Mike McNeil said. "But we see the future as very, very bright internationally."

While most of the customers at the Shanghai franchise are Westerners, increasing numbers of Chinese are coming.

"Hooters isn't just a restaurant, it's also American culture, and that appeals to many Chinese," said Xu, the Shanghai marketing director.

Chinese acceptance of the brand owes as much to a loosening of Chinese views on sexuality as it does to marketing savvy.

"The younger generation is very different from our parents," Xu said.

Chinese businesses routinely hire attractive young women to sell products.

Zhou, who uses the English name Lucky and was named China Hooters Girl of the year last year, studies at Shanghai's Fudan University and works 20 hours a week at Hooters. She cheers for the Shanghai Sharks, the basketball team Houston Rockets center Yao Ming once played for.

Zhou likes the job because she can improve her English, make new friends and earn several hundred dollars a month.

"And working at Hooters has taught me a lot about American culture," she said.

Source: Business? Editor: Susan