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"A-Z Kids" a Place to Have Fun Together

By 2006 the percentage of family income spent on food in Beijing had declined to 31.8 percent, 20 percentage points less than that of 1978. Experts say this means that Beijingers now have more money to spend on things such as clothing, education, travel and leisure.

That’s why Anthony Silver and his company UK Century, a joint venture based in London chose to bring an entirely new concept of family entertainment to Beijing.

“Look at the opportunities here!” Silver said when asked why he did not start his business in Britain.

“A–Z Kids” is an indoor family entertainment centre where dad, mom and the children can all get what they want. The children can play in the 2,100 square metre area with soft toys, climb up and down slides constructed with toy bricks or role play; moms can do yoga, study tae kwon do, dancing and cooking; and fathers can find a corner to log onto the Internet, read magazines or have a drink and all can have formal meals in the restaurant, which is part of the centre.

Located outside the East Fourth Ring Road on Chaoyang Lu at Qingnian Lu, A–Z chose not to locate in a more central area in Beijing like the CBD (Beijing Central Business District) because Silver believes in the potential of the rapidly developing area, which contains many old and new residential communities.

His confidence in the area seems justified. Although it is still too early to say the business is a success after five months of trial operations and one month of normal business operations, it is already breaking even.

This is rewarding for Silver, because as confident as he was of success, he didn’t expect instant acceptance from his local consumers.

“We were expecting [customers of] maybe 70 percent of overseas returnees and 30 percent of local people, but it has turned out to be the other way around. We thought we would need to educate local consumers about this new concept of leisure by first promoting it among overseas returnees who have had more experience in enjoying various kinds of leisure services. But, the local people are very open-minded; they heard about our place, came to find out it is a good idea and decided to be our guests immediately.”

Oddly enough, A–Z’s success reflects the insufficiencies in China’s leisure industry, which Silver discovered when he worked as games/site manager of the World Carnival when it first came to China in 2003.

“When we had the World Carnival in Beijing in 2004, people were like ‘crazy’,” he said. “There are these new riches in China; people have money and they are ready for high-quality leisure services to spend on.” 

Now with 25 years of experience in the leisure industry, Silver was once a photographer. He entered the leisure industry as an imaging professional to help design snap-shot cameras for rides in amusement parks to capture the riders’ expressions at exciting moments during a ride. He made a successful transition in his career in the leisure industry. After only seven years, he had become a director of the company he would go on to buy.

Unlike traditional forms of leisure facilities which cater to certain groups of people, the family entertainment centre integrated different needs of members of a two-generation family with that of young children so that young parents won’t have to sacrifice their free time and interests to take care of their children.

UK Century, which operates “A–Z Kids,” is a UK–Sino joint venture initiated by Silver and his Chinese partner. “We borrowed leisure industry ideas from different countries, and came out with our own new concept,” said Silver. “Keeping the family together is what it’s all about.”

 Already remodelling to fine-tune his centre, Silver and his company are already seeking a place to open a second centre in Beijing; they plan to open six around the country.

But this does not mark the boundary of Silver’s ambitious plans. He is also planning a 23,000-square-metre family oriented shopping mall. Inside the mall, there will be a children’s centre, learning programmes, restaurants, themed bars, sports facilities, video displays, and even items for elder family members such as chess and Taiji classes.

Doing business as a foreigner in China, Silver said his biggest difficulty is the language. Other obstacles like cultural differences are not big headaches because he has a “perfect” Chinese partner who passes on his local Beijing knowledge.

“Find yourself a good partner; that is the most important thing when you are doing business in a foreign country,” said Silver. “Have a good concept, do your research and marketing, be aware of the cultural differences, and then you should have no problems finding people to help you doing business in China, especially with its huge potential today.”