Long lines formed yesterday as the Taipei International Flora Expo opened amid sporadic rain, even though fewer people than had been expected braved the weather to get a look at the much-hyped event.
Less than 40,000 visitors, local and foreign, attended the official opening of the six-month-long event, walking around the expo sites that are scattered around Yuanshan Park, Xinsheng Park, the Fine Arts Park and Dajia Riverside Park featuring over 30 million varieties of flowers and plants, as well as cutting-edge digital technology in 14 pavilions.
The number of daily visitors fell short of the organizers’ estimate of 100,000 on weekends. Director of the expo’s organizing committee Ting Hsi-yung (丁錫鏞) blamed it on the bad weather and anticipation of large crowds and said the organizing committee remained confident it would attract 8 million visitors by the end of the event, with 3.5 million advance tickets already sold.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
“The number of visitors on the opening day of an expo offers little reference, because many people chose not to visit the expo on the first day in order to avoid the crowd,” he said.
The final count came to 38,898 visitors on the opening day.
A breakdown of the ticket gates at the entrances marred the -opening day and sparked some complaints from visitors, as they had to be admitted into the expo manually before organizers solved the problem after 20 minutes.
The tour boats that travel along Dajia Riverside Park, meanwhile, stopped service at 3:20pm because of the low tide. Ting said the organizing committee would seek to improve the situation as soon as possible.
The problems and the rain did not seem to dampen participants’ enthusiasm for the event, as some arrived at the expo as early as 5:30am.
“This is the largest international event held in Taiwan and we are very excited about it. We are even more proud of Taiwan after seeing all the floral displays, especially the orchids and the rare plants exhibited in the pavilions,” said 20-year-old Yang Shun-hsiung (楊順雄), who took a midnight train from Chiayi to visit the expo.
Pilar Laguana, marketing manager of the Guam Visitors Bureau, described the expo as a “tribute to Taiwan” for providing a great learning experience on sustainability and ecology.
“[The expo] is very exciting, very peaceful ... It reminds everyone that we have to be eco-sensitive,” she said after visiting the Pavilion of the Future and Pavilion of Dreams.
The two pavilions are among the most popular sites at the expo, with reservation vouchers of the Pavilion of Dreams all taken at 12pm.
The Democratic Progressive Party’s Taipei mayoral candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), and his wife visited the Expo Dome soon after the expo opened in the morning.
Su, however, avoided meeting with Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who was at another corner of the pavilion presiding over a flora art competition award ceremony.
Hau and Doeke Faber, president of the International Association of Horticultural Growers (AIPH), yesterday welcomed the first batch of visitors at 8:30am in front of the Yuanshan Park area. Faber presented Hau and the city with a Taiwanese cedar tree, calling it a “living gift” to be enjoyed by generations to come.
“The Taipei International Flora Expo is the best one I have seen in 50 years and it will set an example for the expos in the next decade,” Faber said at the opening ceremony of the expo.
Meanwhile, at a lunch reception hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday, Belize -Governor-General Colville Young suggested that Taiwan should be admitted to the UN in a nod to Taiwan’s efforts to raise its international profile by holding such events as the flora expo.
Proposing a toast to “empty chairs” at the reception as well as to Taiwan, Young said he was referring to “the empty seats at the UN, which we all hope will be filled one day soon with the representatives of the ROC [Republic of China], Taiwan.”
The expo will run until April 25, daily from 9am to 10pm.
Additional reporting by CNA
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