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September 20th, 2014

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A company that organises speed dating and social events for singles sees great potential in the country’s expat community. Statistical market research of the group leads Seeqone.com to believe that catering to them could see an increase in turnover of 10 to 15 percent. 

‘Foreigner-friendly’
For three years Seeqone.com has organised speed dating and social events for thousands of singles. Users create a free online profile and thereafter can sign up to events that cost from about 100 to 200 kroner. The company currently runs 80 to 100 such events each year.

According to Michael Rubio, Seeqone.com’s head of communications and PR, the company aims to attract both Danish and foreign customers. “Seeqone.com is a foreigner-friendly company. We’ve had people from over 30 countries participating at our events,” he explained. 

“I have travelled a lot in different countries and personally experienced that this is a great way to meet the locals. Plus, we figured it made good business sense. There is a large number of expats – especially with students coming for one or two years.”

But Rubio felt that more could be done to attract expats and students to the service. “This is when we decided to enlist the help of the data and statistics provider MySay to conduct a survey of expats in Denmark, so that we could dive deeper into the community and find out what they think,” he said.

Friendship: a numbers game

The survey contained both questions specific to Seeqone.com’s services and background questions about the participants – for example, where they came from and how many Danish friends they have (see fact file and graphic for some of the results).

“We found that many expats are not satisfied with their social life in Denmark. An interesting finding is that it takes on average a bit longer than two years for an expat to make one Danish friend.”

Seeqone.com discovered that expats were interested in their current product line to varying degrees. “We found that people were less willing to participate in the more ‘direct’ dating events such as speed dating. Instead they prefer some of the other events where people attend dinner parties in groups, such as the running dinner,” according to Rubio.

Among the expats questioned, three times as many men as women would be interested in becoming a customer, revealed Rubio.

However, so far it is good news for men, as among Seeqone’s current customers, there is a male shortage. 

But most significant for Rubio was the expats’ motivation for wanting to attend events. “One of the most striking results was that expats would participate in events organised by Seeqone.com mainly in order to socialise rather than to date!” 

Rethink or rebrand?
For Rubio, commissioning the survey has been a worthwhile endeavour. “The results from MySay have been really valuable to us,” he enthused.

“They show that there is indeed a big market of internationals interested in attending facilitated social events. The fact that people were more interested in socialising with Danes than finding a partner may lead to us rethinking our branding and marketing. We may even develop a new product line, such as events run exclusively in English.”

(Graphic: MySay)

So, how do you compare: are you a social butterfly or a Billy no-mates?

The Expat Survey

• Survey was disseminated through Facebook, Meetup groups and InterNations

• 204 expats replied to the survey

• About 50 percent of the respondents were single

• On average the respondents had been in Denmark for four years and 50 percent expected to stay in Denmark for four years or less

• There was no difference between Western and non-Western expats in terms of the number of Danish friends made

• Expats get an average of three new Danish ‘acquaintances’ a year

• Male expats are significantly more likely to be single than female expats