Many nations are promoting their major cities to make themselves more attractive to foreigners. They are using city marketing to attract tourists and other visitors, aiming to boost tourism and urban exchanges to bolster the economy.
International exchanges are important, but exchanges based on a city offer more flexibility.
The Olympic Games are perfect examples of how cities are showcased to attract international attention. Such city-based events are of course backed by national governments. The same thing applies to a lesser extent with the Universiade. Numerous cities are vying to win the right to host these events in the hope that the world would turn its attention on them.
There are many city-based cultural events, such as the Cannes film festival in France, the carnival in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, the Venice Biennale and the Setouchi Triennale in Japan’s Okayama Prefecture. These locations, thanks to the events they are hosting, have all become tourist hot spots over the years.
Sometimes people are so enamored by a movie — such as Roman Holiday, in which Audrey Hepburn shuttles back and forth between famous sights in Rome — that they feel the urge to visit the place they have seen on screen.
Sometimes the tourism sector booms thanks to places of interest in a city. One typical example of this is Barcelona, where the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia and many other works by architect Antoni Gaudi are located.
Taiwan is increasingly putting more importance on the tourism sector and city marketing is becoming more important for the nation’s cities. This offers a flexible way out of Taiwan’s peculiar national status.
The National Palace Museum attracts large numbers of tourists, although it unfortunately continues to be affected by a connection to China that still has to be resolved.
Taiwan sometimes opposes China, as if wrestling with it, and sometimes gets along with it nicely: On the one hand Taiwanese want Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, on the other they are unhappy with them when they come here.
For example, the Grand Hotel — which is called the nation’s face to the world — charges NT$400 for a bowl of beef noodle soup, but because Chinese tourists are stealing the porcelain spoons, beef noodles at the hotel are now served with plastic spoons. Taiwanese are complaining and saying that this makes the nation lose face and that it is an example of negative marketing.
In Taipei, the old streets in Dadaocheng District (大稻埕) help promote Taiwan. Taipei’s urban development has left an impression on the area and many movies use Dadaocheng as a backdrop — using the streets, the buildings the historic sites in the area to weave storylines telling recent events in Taipei.
One good example of how this is done is the movie When Miracle Meets Maths (愛情算不算).
Along Zhongshan N Road, which runs close to the Dadaocheng area, the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute at the Rose Historic Site (玫瑰古蹟) carries a distinct cultural flavor.
Since 2006, a total of 10 Tsai Jui-yueh dance festivals have been held, highlighting the past and the present with the help of local and international stories.
As these festivals have become a part of public life, they have also become a testimony of the times people live in, and their artistic value contributes to Taipei’s cultural landscape.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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