Taichung City Government is promoting tourism with the travel model of “entering and leaving from Central Taiwan”. It is not only aggressively exploiting new routes and flights, but also establishing tourism partnerships with foreign cities, enhancing accommodation service quality, and holding various tourism events. According to the “Top 100 City Destination Ranking” report announced by Euromonitor International, Taichung was listed as one of the top 100 cities for the first time, indicating that the city government’s efforts in promoting tourism have been recognized. Mayor Lin Chia-lung stated that the promotion of tourism is highly related to the city’s identity and marketing. He said that Taichung City expects to attract more people to travel and invest in Taichung through marketing its features in order to create a sense of glory among the citizens and build a livable city.

Director Chen Sheng-shan of the Tourism Office made an report of “Administration Performance of 2016 and Major Administration Planning in 2017: Tourism Development Strategies of the World’s Top 100 Destinations” on March 20th at the city government meeting to elaborate the city government’s development strategies and progresses in promoting tourism and its ideas in promoting tourism in the future.

Director Chen Sheng-shan stated that Taichung City Government has endeavored to conduct the foundation building construction for tourism over the past two years. The progress was not only eye-catching, but also received recognition from the industrial circles and raised the city’s international visibility. Performances including exploiting international flights, exploiting marine-land-air transportation networks, integrating international arrival and departure platforms, and hosting themed trips and international large-scale events were implemented in order to integrate the tourism industrial chain of Central Taiwan and increase tourism revenue.

Director Chen mentioned, due to the fact that Taichung City will host international events such as the World Flora Exposition in 2018 and East Asian Youth Games in 2019, it is building a tourist-friendly environment and will enhance its international visibility regarding tourism to Taichung though measures such as connecting itself to the world through marine and air networks, improving the environment by providing better services and integrating resources to create tourism features.

The city government plans to release LOHAS itineraries at the mountainous area of Taichung to attract foreign and domestic tourists to experience the ecology, pick fruits, appreciate flowers, enjoy local cultures, bathe in hot springs, and go hiking. As for the coastal area of Taichung, it will integrate the featuring sites along the coastal line in releasing cultural and ecological itineraries and build a glamorous tourism corridor along the coasts of Taichung.

As for tourism in the old city, besides continuing to release attractive sites under the ”town within the city” program and revitalize the appearance of the old city, it will also coordinate with the themed events of Taichung’s “Century Festival” to promote regional in-depth itineraries. It will enhance international and regional tourism integration through Central Taiwan Tourism Promotion Committee to attract tourists from Hong Kong, Korea and Japan to visit Taichung. Through a series of marketing strategies, it anticipates to strengthen the city brand of Taichung and allow it to integrate with the international society.

Mayor Lin stated that the development strategy of a city must be “human-oriented”. Therefore, as Taichung City identifies itself as a “livable city & living capital”, besides offering local dwellers a better quality of life, it also has to attract foreigners to travel and invest here. In order to achieve such goals, measures to attract tourist and investments are core goals of the city government’s policies.

Mayor Lin pointed out that tourism is highly related to the city’s identification and marketing and is the business closest to the mass public. In order to attract crowds to visit Taichung, it must “conduct marketing on its features”. Taichung City has the soft power potentials of bubble milk tea, bicycling, Mazu and many other features that can be exploited from various events. Mayor Lin, along with members of the city government, visited the Chun Shui Tang branch in Tokyo not long ago and discovered that bubble milk tea was so popular that a thousand cups of it are sold daily. Given that bubble milk tea originated from Taichung, it can be advertised along with the Flora Exposition as an evident example of feature marketing.

Mayor Lin also mentioned that Taichung has other features such as the biodiversity and cultures at Dajia River and Shei-Pa National Park. These features and information will all be presented to the world at the 2018 World Flora Exposition with the most friendly information services. Also taking reference of the mobile street traveling consultation centers of Seoul, mobile information personnel will be dispatched at various events to demonstrate better efficacy.

Mayor Lin stressed that as Taichung City is becoming the second largest city in Taiwan, the city government will continue to showcase the features of Taichung, enhance everybody’s identity towards Taichung, establish a sense of glory for this city, allow citizens to enjoy a better life, and make them willing to share this livable city with others.