The Tourism Bureau is to launch a series of campaigns to boost interest in a “Cinderella Shoe” structure in Chiayi County, a tourist attraction that has been losing its appeal.
The installation in Budai Township’s (布袋) Ocean View Park was built to commemorate blackfoot disease, which was a scourge of coastal areas in Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan counties in the 1950s, causing gangrene that cost many patients one of their feet.
The 17.76m tall, 11.91m wide and 25.16m long shoe made from 320 panes of blue-tinted glass has been nicknamed the “High-Heel Chapel” because it was intended to serve as a location for wedding photographs.
Photo: CNA
Soon after it was built in February last year, it reportedly drew 200,000 visitors over the five-day Lunar New Year holiday.
Later in the year, the structure was granted Guinness World Record certification as the world’s largest structure shaped like a high-heeled shoe.
However, the number of visitors to the site has dropped sharply from an average 200,000 per month in spring to 140,000 in summer, the bureau said.
“It is surprising to see that the structure has lost its appeal so fast,” said Wu Chun-chieh (吳峻傑), an official at the bureau’s Southwest Coast National Scenic Area Administration that built and manages the structure.
Efforts to attract private operators have also been unsuccessful, he said.
Even though the annual rent is only NT$1.7 million (US$56,655), there have been no tenders to operate the wedding venue or the 12 shopping booths, Wu said.
The agency plans to upgrade the facilities and services, and launch a series of promotions in a bid to revive interest in the structure, he said.
Meanwhile, Ocean Hotel, which is about 15 minutes walking distance from the structure, has not seen any significant drop in business as a result of the shoe’s waning popularity.
The three-star hotel, once a visitor service center, said it is more worried about slow business on weekdays.
The hotel, which is to start formal operations next month after a 13-month trial run, said it is usually fully occupied on weekends and public holidays, but is only about 30 to 50 percent full on weekdays.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS