Article by Bak Keung Ko & Raymond Mei
Photo by LucasHuangPhotography
In efforts to further promote Taiwan tourism, Director-General of Taiwanese Tourism Bureau Mr. David Hsieh, personally led a press conference at noon on Thursday, April 18, 2013 at the Taipei Economic and Culture Office (TECO) in New York. He also hosted a delegation workshop at The Setai Fifth Avenue in New York City. In the days prior to his appearance in New York City, he also made a stop in Los Angeles, essentially visiting North America’s two major cities.
Director-General of Taiwanese Tourism Bureau Mr. David Hsieh
Director General Mr.Hsieh revealed updated information about Taiwan Tourism and how American visitors can enjoy and immerse themselves even more in Taiwanese culture. He noted that people visit Taiwan for many things and quotes its famous pastimes, “Time for Two Wheels”, “Time to Eat”, “Time to Shop”, Time for Love”, “Time to Marvel”, and “Time for Nature”. When tourists visit Taiwan, they will notice that bicycling is one of its most popular forms of transportation. They will also be reminded of nature’s beauty, and exposed to famous traditional Taiwanese food and fashion, great hospitality and amazing cities.
Director of Taiwan Tourism Bureau in NY Office Mr. Thomas Chang (left), Director-General of Taiwanese Tourism Bureau Mr. David Hsieh
In addition to speaking about the wonders of Taiwanese culture, Mr. Hsieh also opened up the floor to reporters and commentators with further questions of what Taiwan has to offer. The afternoon conference later ended with traditional Taiwanese food and famous Taiwanese bubble teas!
After the press conference, Taiwan Tourism held a delegation workshop & dinner gala with a full-house of travel writers (National Geographic, Frommer’s), travel agencies and media reporters (ETTV, TVBS & NTDTV) at the beautiful event hall of The Setai Fifth Avenue. AsianInNY’s founders were chosen to co-emcee the event and they both were very excited about the opportunity.
Rainer Jenss (National Geographic), Pauline Frommer (Frommer's Guidebook)
During both press conference and workshop, Taiwan Tourism featured one of the most popular music performers in Taiwan, the Chai Found Music Workshop Rock Ensemble. Consisting of the erhu, pipa, guzheng, ruan and bamboo flute, Chai Found utilizes both contemporary and Chinese traditional music in their East meet West performances.
Chai Found Music Workshop Rock Ensemble
One thing you cannot miss is the beautiful landscapes on the island of Taiwan. This year, the Taiwan Tourism Bureau has announced “Time for Celebration – The Taiwan Tourism Events” combining Taiwan’s world-famous destinations, local features, travel packages and food tasting events. With these fantastic activities, their goal is to attract visitors to keep coming back for the amazing and unique experiences of Taiwan. Therefore, Taiwan Tourism Bureau in New York Office presented a Tourism Source Brief to excite the audience and share their traveling information about Taiwan.
Sasha Chou of Taiwan Tourism Bureau in New York Office
The Taiwan Tourism Delegation is formed with 11 units, 23 members in total and many of whom have more than 30 years of experience in leading professional tours in Taiwan. During the workshop, 7 representatives from the delegation also conducted a short presentation to introduce each company’s history and specialty.
Connie Chang (The Taiwan Tourism Delegation)
Towards the conclusion of the event, Ms. Pauline Frommer (host of The Travel Show and award winning writer) and Mr. Kevin Wolkober (traveled in Taiwan for 4.5 months) both shared their personal experience of their trips to Taiwan and what they loved about traveling in Taiwan.
Pauline Frommer
Kevin Wolkober
Then it was time for the highlight of the event: the Ultimate Lucky Draw! Many lucky attendees won great gifts such as hotel stays, free city tours and 6 lucky winners even received round-trip tickets sponsored by China Airlines, Eva Airways, United Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. For those who didn’t win any prizes, still walked out of the workshop with a big smile because every attendee went home with a huge gift bag filled with Taiwanese famous snacks such as, pineapple cakes and mochi.
Lucas Huang (AsianInNY), John McGee (Artisans of Leisure)
Director of Taiwan Tourism Bureau in New York Office Mr. Thomas Chang told us, “By holding this event, we want to excite everyone and enlighten their impressions about Taiwan, also to create a special connection with each other through the workshop.” From all the smiles and business card exchanges, we were sure that everyone had an amazing time and got to go home with resourceful information through the night’s festivities.
For more information about Taiwan Tourism, please follow them at http://www.facebook.com/TaiwanTourism
Mr. Eric Lin (Director of International Affairs Division of TTB), Jean Chang (Golden Foundation Service Group), Andrew Kao (Ambassador of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York), David Hsieh (Director-General of TTB), Thomas Chang (Director of TTB in NY)
For more images and event coverage, please follow us at http://www.facebook.com/AsianInNYFans
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