Revenues at the National Palace Museum in Taipei have increased markedly over the last few years, thanks to an influx of tourists from mainland China and better marketing techniques, museum officials said April 22.
In 2009, the museum received 2.57 million foreigners, half of which were foreigners. And among the foreign visitors, half of them, or 625,000, were from mainland China, making mainland tourists the No. 1 patron of the museum. Japanese tourists, at 340,000, were the second most heavily represented group of foreign visitors.
Its gift shop brought in NT$510 million in sales last year, 50 percent more than two years ago, the officials said.
The visitors may have been more willing to open their wallets at the museum’s gift shop because the quality of it souvenirs has improved, according to Yang Chi-hua, deputy director of the museum’s marketing department.
She noted that in 2005 the NPM started authorizing manufacturers the right to use images of the museum’s artifacts in their merchandise. Since then, the museum has entered into collaboration agreements with 19 companies, some of them from Taiwan, others from abroad.
Products based on the famed “Jadeite Cabbage with Insects” are the most popular among mainland tourists, Yang said. They enjoy buying cell phone accessories based on the cabbage, for instance. Mainlanders are also fond of copies of famous paintings, in particular “Along the River during the Ch'ing Ming Festival,” an enormous scroll from the 18th century with hundreds of people depicted.
Japanese tourists, on the other hand, prefer gifts having to do with food, or those that are exquisitely designed. Europeans prefer jade and the “The Chin Family” and “Orientales” series of gifts that the museum developed together with Italian manufacturer Alessi.
Not only are the products sold within the museum’s gift stores. They are also increasingly being sold abroad. Together with its partners, the museum showcased some of its products in 2008 in Beijing and Taipei. Its ambitions are to market the NPM brand name.
According to museum officials, some of its merchandise will be at display on the Taipei International Gift and Stationery Show 2010, which runs at the Taipei World Trade Center from April 23 to April 26.
One item is a spectacular gold foil rendition of “Along the River during the Ch'ing Ming Festival,” the officials said. Another is an i-phone jacket, made from environmentally-friendly silicone, which contains a replication of what is perhaps the most famous work by the most famous calligraphy writer in all of Chinese history: “The Preface to Lanting,” by Wang Xichi. (HZW)