The Taipei International Flora Expo, the largest international event ever held in Taiwan, concluded yesterday amid doubts over its effectiveness in attracting foreign tourists and boosting the city’s tourism.
The six-month event, which spanned three sites covering a total of 91.8 hectares in Taipei’s Datong District (大同), attracted more than 8.9 million visitors by closing time yesterday.
However, less than 7 percent were foreign visitors.
Photo: CNA
The majority of the approximately 600,000 foreign visitors came from Asian countries, of which Chinese tourists accounted for 45 percent. Between 20 percent and 30 percent were from Japan, statistics from the expo showed.
The small percentage of foreigners visiting the expo sparked criticism about the event’s effectiveness in raising Taipei’s international profile and promoting the city’s tourism industry — two objectives set by the city government.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) challenged the city government’s efforts in promoting the event to the international community, as it spent most of the marketing budget on domestic advertising.
The city government listed a total budget of NT$130 billion (US$4.4 billion) for the expo since 2009. While NT$4 billion was spent on marketing, only NT$3.6 million was set aside for international advertising.
Of the NT$29 million budgeted to promote the expo overseas last year, the city spent NT$25 million in China, with the remainder spent in countries such as Japan, the US, the UK, Canada, Germany and Turkey, Yen said.
The expo became a popular attraction for Chinese tourists, who were often spotted in groups at expo venues, while many foreign visitors from the US and Europe visited the event along with friends or family from Taiwan, rather than learning about the event through commercials and promotions.
Karl Heinz, a 65-year-old minister from Germany who visited the expo with his wife yesterday morning, said he learned about the event from his son, who is studying Mandarin at Fu Jen Catholic University.
“My son suggested that we should come to the expo because my wife loves flowers. This is the biggest flora event I’ve ever seen and it’s really beautiful,” he said while walking around a garden at the expo’s Yuanshan Park area.
Another German called Stefan, who declined to give his last name, visited the expo yesterday with his Taiwanese wife and child.
The family came to the event on its last day to use up the advance tickets they purchased. Their first trip to the event, however, lasted for only 30 minutes because they had a hard time moving through the crowds with a stroller.
“There are few facilities for strollers and it’s difficult for us to get to other sites,” he said.
General producer of the expo Ting See-you (丁錫鏞) said organizers would not have the exact number of foreign visitors until after the closing ceremony, but he said the overall percentage of foreign visitors was higher when compared with the average number of foreign visitors at other international expositions.
“The number of foreign visitors to the World Expo in Shanghai accounted for about 5 percent of total visitors and the flora expo attracted more foreign visitors than many international expositions,” he said.
Taipei’s Department of Information and Tourism yesterday cited statistics from the Tourism Bureau to defend the expo’s impact on the local tourism industry.
Statistics showed that the number of visitors to Taiwan since the expo was launched in November last year rose 26 percent when compared with 2009.
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