The Spanish social media travel portal Minube has entered the China marketplace with the launch of its Chinese website Minube.cn.

According to reports in foreign media, this is the first step for the company to expand in the Asian market, and it will be followed by the launch of a Japanese website and the establishment of an office in Guangzhou. Minube was first launched in 2007 and now has Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, and French versions. Minube claims over one million monthly visits in Spain and around 1.6 million visits globally.

Raul Jimenez, the founder of Minube, said that the company was convinced it would launch Minube in China from the very beginning of the project. After their successful experience in the European market, they needed to find the right team to lead this project and a business model that adapts to requirements of the Asian market.

Minube is a social media travel portal and instead of reservations, the user and the destination are at its core. Minube's features all converge onto building a travel community, branded as a destination discovery site. Through the help of fellow globetrotters and tourists, users can explore and literally share new "corners" of the world. Currently Minube has about 145,000 "corners" posted by Spanish users.

Minube positions itself at the very beginning of the process of planning a trip to help users decide where they want to go, rather than where to stay or what to do in a location that they have already decided on. Users are prompted and rewarded for giving details and recommending new locations on the Minube map, rather than criticizing them. As these user-created locations receive page views the users who uploaded content will get paid.