Kaohsiung residents were given priority to buy tickets for Ko Chi Enti's concert. Chen Qimai responded eloquently for nearly 7 minutes

Kuomintang Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Ke Zhien recently proposed during a live broadcast with city councilors that he would strive for "Kaohsiung citizens to have priority in purchasing tickets" in the future, which caused a backlash from overseas fans and Kaohsiung tourism industry operators. In response, Mayor Chen Qimai was asked this question today (9th) and responded eloquently for nearly 7 minutes. He believed that some candidates may be busier and hopes to have a deeper understanding of the complexity of the entire concert economy.

Chen Qimai emphasized that the concert is not limited to the Tiantuan concert venue, but will actually expand to the development of the entire concert industry related to the outside world, including the development of hotels, restaurants, tourism and other industries. Take Kaohsiung this year as an example. As of August this year, the tourism output value has reached 3.6 billion yuan, the tourism industry has grown by about 48%, and the catering industry has also grown by about 10%.

Chen Qimai said that international concerts certainly bring about economic externalities. He gave an example. If you only stay for one day and travel on a one-day trip, your one-day consumption will be about 1,300 yuan. If you stay overnight, you can create additional economic benefits of about 5,700 yuan. The difference in benefits is very large. Taking the past Korean tour group as an example, if there were a total of 150,000 people in three days, the city government used big data and AI statistics to find that about 70% to 80% were from other counties and cities.

He further said that 70% to 80% of the 70% to 80% will stay overnight in Kaohsiung. If we estimate a concert with 150,000 people, about 100,000 people will be fans from other counties, cities or abroad, and nearly 75,000 people will stay overnight in Kaohsiung. Therefore, the impact on Kaohsiung’s economy will be very, very large.

Chen Qimai said that the traffic evacuation, public services, public safety, etc. of the concert must meet the requirements and specifications before it can compete with others in the international market. The experience accumulated in Kaohsiung in the past few years has been recognized by large international tour group brokers. "Therefore, Kaohsiung is the most preferred choice for international tour groups to Taiwan."

Regarding Ke Zhien's views, Chen Qimai believes that "the candidates may be very busy now, and we can't blame them for this." However, these experiences of the Kaohsiung City Government have been retained. Candidates are quite busy during the election campaign. It may be better if they can have a more in-depth understanding of the complexity of the entire concert economic industry before putting forward political opinions or propositions.

In the end, he did not forget to add, "My suggestion is this. This is for the election process. I did not say which candidate is specifically targeted."