What does Taiwan offer visiting business events groups?
Taiwan is centrally located and has direct flights to most countries and now, to mainland China. Taiwan has an old style of Chinese culture. By contrast, we also have some of the most advanced technology in the world. We have a 24-hour shopping culture, beautiful scenery and our cuisine is regarded very highly. We are also a safe destination and Taiwanese people are known for being very friendly.

What major events will Taiwan host this year?
We are hosting a conference for the International Dental Association, the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, several annual medical events and an APEC forum in September. The World Games are being held in Kaohsiung in July and the Deaflympics in Taipei in September.

How is Meet Taiwan promoting Taiwan’s MICE industry?
We have just launched our second four-year plan. There are four key areas of focus: establishing professional consulting centres for research and collaboration, and to distribute funds to associations, universities, research institutes and companies bidding for events; boosting Taiwan’s international image as a MICE destination; increasing the quality and availability of professional training programmes for those working in the MICE industry; and making our bidding process more professional through database management.

Alice Chou is project leader at Meet Taiwan