A commercial featuring Taiwan’s beauty began showing in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday and will run for one month as part of efforts to promote tourism, officials posted in the US said.
The campaign, which will run between Christmas and New Year, marks the first time a Taiwanese commercial has been shown in the square.
From 6am until 2am every day, the two-and-a-half minute ad will be shown every hour on two wall screens on either side of the Times Square Ball — the focus of the New Year countdown that attracts more than 1.6 million revelers every year.
Kao Jen-chuan (高振群), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, said the commercial provides a rare opportunity for Taiwan’s beautiful scenery to be brought to the world stage.
Chang Cheng-yuan (張政源), director of the Tourism Bureau’s New York office, said the ad was expected to greatly increase the nation’s media exposure and help attract more visitors.
Visitor arrivals from the US dropped by 5 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of this year, officials said.
A study published by online booking platform Expedia revealed searches for travel to Taipei have ballooned 2,786 percent following the lifting of COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions due to the city being a “designation dupe” for Seoul. The TikTok trend for duping — referring to substituting a designation for a more inexpensive alternative — helped propel interest in Taipei, it said in a consumer survey titled “Unpack ‘24,” which was conducted from September to October in 14 countries. Location dupes are “every bit as delightful as the tried-and-true places travelers love,” Expedia trend tracker Melanie Fish said of the year’s popular alternatives, which
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