For 26-year-old Japanese tourist Shinnichi Kawasumi, transplanting rice seedlings in a paddy in northeastern Taiwan was a unique experience because it brought back childhood memories.
“Somehow I became nostalgic for my hometown of Nagoya, where my grandparents live,” he said after an exhausting day of farming in Nanao Township (南澳), Yilan County, one of the sites designated by the Tourism Bureau for a long-term project offering in-depth travel experiences to foreign tourists.
Along with more than 100 participants from countries such as Japan, South Korea and Russia, Kawasumi spent an hour carefully transplanting about 30 rice seedlings he was given.
“It was fun and I will be more than happy to come back, perhaps trying other crops,” he said.
Kawasumi’s farming experience represents a promising niche developed by the Tourism Bureau that capitalizes on Taiwan’s rich agricultural resources to create a nostalgic bond between foreign tourists and the land.
Featuring a series of “seeding festivals” celebrated in the township, including the one in which Kawasumi participated, the bureau said the campaign is aimed at emphasizing Taiwan’s unique travel appeal.
“We want to provide profound connections between foreign travelers and locals so they will come back again and again,” said Cheng Yi-ping (鄭憶萍), section chief at the bureau’s international travel division.
The agricultural tourism program is part of the “Project Vanguard for Excellence,” to which the Tourism Bureau has allocated NT$30 billion (US$1 billion) since 2009 to develop marketing approaches that meet the needs of various markets.
By the end of this year, the project is expected to generate NT$550 billion in tourism revenue, create 400,000 jobs, attract NT$200 billion in private investment and bring at least 10 major international chain hotels to Taiwan, the bureau said.
The agricultural program itself is not expected to generate impressive statistics — the bureau is hoping the project will attract 1,500 foreign visitors this year.
However, its significance to “Project Vanguard for Excellence” is not being measured by quantitative indicators. More important will be its ability to expand the scope of experiences offered and their impact on those who visit.
According to a company commissioned by the bureau to develop different marketing strategies, building travel options across a number of sectors is a necessary component of success.
“A premium travel product means you have to provide an experience that involves all dynamics of life, which your clients will remember long after they leave,” said Milton Chen (陳明宏), a director of Hi-Power Digitalworld Inc.
Aside from planting crops at farms, Chen said, five similar projects are being presented around Taiwan to provide a broader range of experiences — including a tea harvest in Lugu Township (鹿谷), Nantou County, fishing in the outlying Liouciou Township (琉球) and growing fruit in Fusing Township (復興), Taoyuan County.
In future, the project will be extended to the hospitality industry so foreign tourists can have their crops turned into meals for themselves, Cheng said.
“That’s what we call ‘reap what you sow,’” Cheng said, adding that the agency will spend NT$42 million over the next three years to construct an online platform for the agriculture tourism project.
Describing each of the small projects as a ray of light, Cheng said that when pulled together they would form a powerful word-of-mouth network among visitors, who are likely to return and introduce the experience to others.
“We don’t care too much about growth in numbers in the short term, because what we want is to build a brand,” she said. “These programs focus on customer relationship management.”
The combination of tourism and agriculture, which has contributed significantly to Taiwan’s economic development, is also a good way to promote community awareness, according to a farm owner participating in the project.
Chen Chang-chiang, who leases the Nanao Natural Farm, said he hopes to draw nearly 1,000 foreign visitors to his farm this year to experience what he called “community-supported agriculture.”
The model starts with procuring fallow land from a group of local landowners, Chen Chang-chiang said.
Farmers are then hired to tend the crops, with small areas open for Taiwanese and international tourists to help cultivate.
Harvests are distributed to all shareholders based on their contribution of money, resources and labor.
“The real spirit of the program is to ‘share’ — not only the produce, but also the exercise itself,” he said.
The result is that people in the township can make a living off the 9.7 hectares of land on which rice, carrots, peanuts and passion fruit can be grown, while visitors can enjoy a special experience through “working holidays” or in-depth tourism packages.
“Some of our clients get so into farming that they wouldn’t have left if their visas were not about to expire,” Chen Chang-chiang said.
Chen even leased 20 small pieces of land last year to foreign tourists, who then came back from time to time to check on their crops.
Above all, he said, the goal of agricultural tourism is to reconnect people to the land.
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