New Taipei Christmas City opens its name for the first time. Councilors question the exploitation of citizens

The New Taipei City Tourism Bureau hosted the "New Taipei Christmas City" event. For the first time this year, it offered at least NT$70 million in royalties to solicit companies for naming. No one has yet submitted a bid. New Taipei City Councilor Dai Weishan criticized the city government at the general inquiry today. The city spent huge sums of money to organize the event but ignored Zhou Border residents suffered from the nightmare of traffic paralysis. She questioned that the naming of the event might turn the "Citizen's Christmas City" into an exclusive venue for companies. Mayor Hou Youyi responded that the initiative for events still lies with the city government. The most important thing is to win the support and approval of more people by organizing events and maintaining the brand.

Dai Weishan questioned that the city government budget for the Happy Christmas City event this year has climbed to 73 million yuan, which is the highest in history. If coupled with the one-to-one funding from manufacturers and the naming fee of 70 million yuan, the total funds for the event will soar to 216 million yuan; in the past, the factory Actual discounts on investment by businesses are often corrected by the Audit Office. Now, if the city government helps manufacturers out by opening up naming rights, and even allows manufacturers to pass on cost pressures to local market vendors when there is insufficient investment, it is completely exploiting the grassroots and selling out the citizens' Christmas City in disguise.

New Taipei City Tourism Director Yang Zongmin clarified that the city government agrees with manufacturers to attract investment, but the cost of investment is not necessarily one-to-one. Regarding the reason for opening this bid, Yang Zongmin said that there were already naming activities in the government. After an inventory in the government, the Tourism Bureau came to organize it for the first time. Because it is a large-scale event, the city government hopes to win some cooperation from those who are willing to sponsor the event.

Why offer 70 million yuan? Yang Zongmin said that due to the large scale of the event, approximately 70 million yuan is spent every year. If an enterprise values ​​this activity and wants to combine it, of course it also hopes to have a certain amount of funding for naming. He said that including the Taiwan Lantern Festival, Taipei New Year's Eve, and Kaohsiung New Year's Eve, the activities are actually handled in this way (named).

Yang Zongmin pointed out that the budget for this year's event is 73 million yuan, and the funds from the naming will still have to go back to the city treasury. This is not an event, it is just a naming process, and no one has bid yet.

Hou Youyi said that the event is still run by the city government. In principle, the Christmas City event must be done well, win the support and approval of more people, and maintain the brand. This is the most important thing. Dai Weishan asked the city government to implement supervision and not to shirk responsibility, and not to allow tourism benefits to be based on the suffering of citizens.