Find the cultural `essence,' tourism experts tell Taipei

Identifying cultural "essence" of the city and creating a brand should be the first steps in developing cultural tourism in Taipei, foreign tourism experts said yesterday.

"The key in promoting a city's cultural tourism is to, first of all, find the cultural essence of the city and then develop it strategically," said Ralf Ebert, co-founder of the STADT Art Planning Consultancy in Germany, at the International Forum on Culture, Tourism and City Promotion yesterday.

Ebert among the scholars and government representatives who took part in the three-day forum sponsored by the Taipei City Government's Bureau of Cultural Affairs held at the Taipei Chien Cheng High School's conference hall.

"Through this forum and sharing of experiences with experts from countries such as Germany, Singapore, Australia, Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, we hope to gain fresh insights and broader perspectives on ways that can better develop and promote Taipei's cultural tourism," bureau director Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) said.

Josef Sommer, general manager of the Cologne Tourist Office in Germany, explained the necessity of developing a marketing strategy to boost a city's tourism industry.

"In order to attract more guests -- business and leisure travelers -- from all over the world, you need to give them good reasons to want to stay longer and [be] eager to come back," Sommer said.

"To reach these ambitious goals, there comes the importance of creating the so-called `City Brand' through [the] process of discovering assets, packaging them and promoting them," he said.

Giving Ilan International Children's Folklore and Folkgame Festival (宜蘭國際童玩節) as an example, Liou Wei-gong (劉維公), associate professor at Soochow University's sociology department, said that public participation plays a key role in whether a tourist program will be success.

First by the Ilan County Government and the Cabinet's Council for Cultural Affairs in 1996, the festival has attracted a total of 1.5 million foreign and local visitors in the past four festivals, according to the Ilan County Government.

"To promote cultural tourism and the like successfully, you need to ignite the crowd's enthusiasm in wanting to participate," Liou said.

Panelists John So, lord mayor of Melbourne, Australia, Auggaphol Brickshawana, director of the Planning Department of Thailand's Tourism Authority, and Dong-hoo Moon, general secretary of the Korean Organizing Committee for 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan.