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Kaohsiung officials hope to cash in on star power

The Kaohsiung City Government hopes to cash in on the star power of a TV series to promote its tourism industry after the show dominated the 2009 Golden Bell Awards.

Lin Kun-shan (林崑山), director of the city’s Tourism Bureau, made the comment after the drama series Black & White (痞子英雄) won five Golden Bell awards on Friday, including best drama.

Kaohsiung has encouraged local filmmakers to produce TV programs, movies and commercials in the city as part of its efforts to enhance its profile and attract more tourists.

The city offered considerable administrative and financial support to Black & White’s production team, and many of the city’s landmarks, including its mass rapid transit stations, were featured in the series.

Lin said his bureau has made the series a major theme in its promotional literature and programs since July.

“A bike tour following the routes that leading Black & White characters have traveled had drawn large crowds of fans, including many from Hong Kong, before the onslaught of Typhoon Morakot,” Lin said.

“Riding on the fame brought by the Golden Bell awards to the drama, we will provide more Black & White-themed tour packages in cooperation with hotel operators,” the tourism official said.

Chinese tourists have boycotted Kaohsiung over the screening of a documentary featuring the Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer as part of the Kaohsiung Film Festival, triggering a significant decline in the city’s tourism sector in recent weeks.

Lin said the city government will step up its publicity drives to help tourism operators.

Meanwhile, Hsu Li-ming (??, director of the city’s Department of Information, said the city set up a filmmaking support center in June. Sixteen of the 35 films produced in Taiwan this year have been shot in Kaohsiung, he said.

“Many TV dramas and commercials have also been set and shot in our city,” Hsu said, adding that filmmaking personnel have so far contributed a lot to the hotel and retail sectors.

Hsu said his department would produce complementary publicity programs if the Black & White production team stages promotional activities in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia.

“We believe the series will be shown in other Asian countries, a development that will definitely give us a windfall in promoting our international image and tourist industry,” Hsu said.

He said department stores, restaurants and places featured in Black & White saw their revenues grow 30 percent when it was screened earlier this year on Public Television Service.

The series is now being broadcast on another network.

The city government will pull out all the stops to help film production teams that want to shoot in the city, Hsu said.
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