The Kaohsiung World Games generated NT$2 billion (US$60.8 million) in tourism revenue for the city, the city’s Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
Bureau Director-General Lin Kun-shan (林崑山) said 259,083 tourists visited Kaohsiung during the 11 days of the Games, a 68 percent increase over the same period last year.
About 1.24 million people visited the World Games Expo, with each visitor spending an average of NT$1,406, Lin said.
The city’s 11 department stores reported turnover of NT$600 million — a 15 percent growth in sales — while the turnover at hotels was NT$200 million, he said.
A total of 274,769 Games tickets were sold, bringing in NT$63.3 million, Lin said, adding that NT$11.2 million in tickets were sold for the opening ceremony dance sports events brought in NT$10.2 million.
Information Office Director-General Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) said a minimum of 8 million people nationwide watched the live broadcast of the opening ceremony while 4.4 million people watched the closing ceremony.
“In the past, when people described Kaohsiung, they usually called it ‘the second-biggest city in Taiwan’ or talked about the volume of containers at the Kaohsiung Harbor,” Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said.
“But from now on, we can tell the world that Kaohsiung hosted the most successful World Games ever in 2009,” she said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS