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Boy band Fahrenheit to promote Taiwan tourism

The Tourism Bureau yesterday unveiled boy band Fahrenheit as its latest spokespersons, saying that it hoped the band would help boost the under-35 tourist market and increase the number of tourists visiting this year by 7 percent.

“Many people have asked me whether signing singers or movie stars as tourism spokespersons is effective — [I tell them that] in the last year alone, while global tourism was in decline, with F4 [another boy band] as our spokespersons, Taiwan tourism scored growth of NT$1.1 billion [US$36 million],” bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said.

The increase was notable especially because the number of Japanese travelers worldwide declined 1.4 percent last year, the bureau’s director of international affairs Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said.

“Last year, the number of Japanese tourists who visited China decreased by 17.1 percent, while those going to Australia dropped about 25 percent — those who came to Taiwan, however increased by 0.42 percent,” he said.

South Korean tourists, who are rapidly becoming another important source of tourism revenue, also increased by 15 percent last year, Liu said.

With its new spokespersons, the bureau aims to secure its existing tourist sources while expanding into new ones, Liu said.

“Japan is currently our biggest source of tourists, with about 30 percent of all tourists coming from there. We want to make sure that stays relatively unchanged. [South] Korea is a market we are eager to expand into since it contributed over NT$900 million of the growth last year,” he said.

Japanese and South Korean tourists also spend relatively more during their stays, averaging US$262 and US$284 per person per day, respectively, while the average tourist spends US$210 a day, he said.

Fahrenheit was selected not only because of their popularity in both Japan and South Korea, but also because they appeal to fans under the age of 35, Liu said.

“The bureau’s previous spokespersons, F4, brought us tourists who were mostly over 35, so we want to reach new markets with Fahrenheit,” he said.

In the coming year, the four members of Fahrenheit will shoot television commercials, appear on special travel episodes of Japanese television programs and hold fan gatherings both at home and abroad, Liu said.

Fahrenheit will also make Internet appearances on popular multimedia Web sites such as I’m TV, he said.

“Excluding Chinese tourists, we are shooting for a 7 percent increase in tourists this year, with a target of 4 million tourists coming into the country,” Liu said.
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