Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday said that with the steady increase in the number of visitors to the 2010 Taipei Flora Expo, he was no longer worried about too few visitors, noting the rapid increase in numbers recently.
“In fact, I am more worried that too many visitors each day could compromise the quality of the experience,” he said.
Hau was responding to media reports quoting parents who said their children’s schools had arranged for students to have outdoor education sessions at the expo twice each semester.
The reports led journalists to question whether the expo was deliberately “using schoolchildren to help artificially boost the number of visitors recorded.”
Asked if he was satisfied with the results of a survey showing that office workers who visited the expo gave it an average score of 73.2 out of 100, Hau said he accepted the views of the public.
However, he also said he was gratified most of the visitors to the expo were satisfied with it.
As of noon yesterday, the number of expo visitors had exceeded 1.4 million.
The 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo is scheduled to run until April 25.
It is home to 14 pavilions and more than 800 varieties of orchids, 329 million locally developed plant varieties, from impatiens and bamboo to bonsai trees, as well as award-winning landscape and gardening designs from 22 countries and 26 cities.
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