Kaohsiung city councilors across party lines on Tuesday urged the city government to develop nighttime activities to attract visitors to the city as it prepares to host this year’s Double Ten National Day fireworks show.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Kaohsiung city councilors Kuo Chien-meng (郭建盟) and Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), as well as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Po-lin (黃柏霖), called on the city government to devise policies to help attract visitors to the city and encourage them to stay overnight.
The city is to host the fireworks show for the first time in 20 years and the city government should devise a policy to attract visitors willing to stay the night in the city, Kuo said.
Photo: Wang Jung-hsiang, Taipei Times
Kuo suggested organizing events similar to the annual all-night arts event Nuit Blanche with a distinctly Kaohsiung twist.
The city’s mass rapid transit and light rail systems could be used to link the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center, the Kaohsiung Pop Music Center, the Kaohsiung Port Terminal and the Pier-2 Art Center into a zone for nighttime activities, Kuo said.
Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau Director Chou Ling-wen (周玲妏) said the National Day celebrations are a precursor for the Taiwan Lantern Festival, which is to be held in the city in February next year.
Holding competitions for braised pork on rice and organizing events for fried chicken to promote the city were excellent ideas, Chen said, but suggested that the bureau consider including higher-tier food and restaurants, such as Michelin-starred establishments.
Chou said the bureau is reaching out to Michelin regarding star recognition, but the process has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Huang said the city government could dedicate more resources promoting the two-hour coastal trek on the Alangyi Trail (阿朗壹) from Chaishan (柴山) to National Sun Yat-sen University.
Chou said the Penglai warehouses near the Pier-2 area would be best suited to develop a night economy.
The city government would have to negotiate with multiple agencies to promote a Chaishan tour, as the area falls under the jurisdiction of different agencies, but the bureau would do its best to come up with a tour of Chaishan, Chou said.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS