When we travel, be it for ecotourism, festivals, literary tourism, or to visit a World Heritage Site, what matters most is why we travel. Travel can help us expand our knowledge, make friends, relax, shop, experience foreign cultures, look back at history…. Travel activities and methods vary according to what people seek in their own hearts and minds.
In recent years “educational tourism” has grown increasingly popular in Taiwan, and tourist factories, craft workshops, and tours offering “experiences” of all kinds of have sprung up in large numbers. This kind of “social studies field trip” approach has become a favorite way for adults to recapture their childhood mindsets. And these experiential activities are by no means limited to tourist factories. With the aid of advanced technology, meticulous craftsmanship, and professionalism, they have become extraordinarily diverse in content, but also rewarding and interesting.
As part of this month’s cover story, we visit Yilan’s Sheng Yuan Leisure Farm and Tainan’s Taiwan Metal Creation Museum to see how businesses that were facing difficulties worked to develop new commercial opportunities in the “experience economy,” building brand value through interaction with consumers. We also talk with Jack Hsu, who founded the production company Self Pick at age 23, and shot the Internet miniseries Mr. Bartender and The Bar, which have amassed over a million views online. We learn how he is deftly using the Internet as well as cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies in his operations, moving step by step from video to his dream of “immersive experiences.”
In addition, we observe at first hand the playing of the games “Through the Photo Studio,” by Clubon, and “Hitting the Streets of Bangka,” by Homeless Taiwan, to see how games can be designed to pique players’ curiosity, and how game playing can help people learn about urban history and gain insights into profound social issues.
Every journey provides an opportunity to reflect on past experience, and through experiential activities we can create memories that are ours alone. The feeling that this brings is quite different from that of collecting information and looking at images before we travel. Among this month’s reports on such things as the shared memory of Taiwan’s defeat of South Korea in the 2019 Premier12 baseball tournament, the bustling scenes at the Formosa Railroad Bento Festival, the aesthetic stimulation to be found in the Fenko Catalysis Chamber, and the challenge of cycling Provincial Highway 7A, I’m sure that travelers with different needs can find experiences to suit their tastes in this month’s Taiwan Panorama. Are you ready? Come with us on an experiential journey through Taiwan!