Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) came under fire at the legislature’s Transportation Committee meeting yesterday over falling numbers of Japanese tourists.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said the bureau’s strategy of recruiting boy bands F4 and Fahrenheit (飛輪海) to attract visitors from Japan has proven to be ineffective as the number of Japanese tourists dropped by 6.8 percent last year compared with 2007.
Lo said that the bureau spent approximately NT$80 million (US$2.4 million) hiring the idols as spokespeople, but generated limited results.
Inspired by the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corp’s “Best Job in the World” competition earlier this year, the bureau launched a similar contest, but Lo said the prizes were too small.
“The Australians spent NT$6 million hiring a caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef island, but you will only give NT$1 million to those writing a blog about their travels in Taiwan,” Lo said. “Nobody wants to come to Taiwan for such a small prize.”
Lai said that the bureau did not just spend NT$80 million hiring boy bands to do nothing. They were hired on a contract to film a TV series that promoted Taiwan’s tourist attractions and to attend tourism events organized by the bureau, she said.
“When the boy band F4 held their meeting with fans in Taipei in 2007, the event alone drew 5,000 Japanese tourists to Taiwan,” Lai said.
Lai also said that the bureau’s “best job” spin-off had seen more than 200 people sign up within 10 days after launching the contest and that the scheme had been covered by at least 20 media organizations from around the world.
KMT Legislator Chiang Lien-fu (江連福) also criticized the bureau’s purchase of keywords in Internet search engines as a way to promote tourism.
He said that the bureau bought too many keywords that refer to the same thing, such as “Taipei 101,” “Taipei 101 building” and “Taipei 101 tower.” He also said that the bureau forgot to buy “Republic of China (中華民國, ROC),” the official title of Taiwan.
The bureau said that it did not buy the official title because it always uses “Taiwan” in its campaign materials, but she said the bureau would add the title to the purchase list.
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