As a regional hub for technology and business, Taipei has over the past years made an important progress representing Taiwan’s role as a gateway into China and other key Asian markets, as well as a global ICT hothouse. Furthermore, the city has invested into service excellence in an effort to become more efficient and attractive to citizens and address some key challenges in urban management, most notably through the “1999” hotline for citizens and other service innovations.

Taipei is also the cultural centre of Taiwan, with not only a buzzing contemporary culture agenda but also major international assets such as the National Palace Museum and the Taipei Zoo. Relations with China have become an important source of regional tourism, with a growing number of direct flights to reach 350 per week by the end of 2009, as well as growing numbers of tourists from other parts of Asia. Yet, surprisingly despite all these assets, Taipei has not been planned as a tourist destination and navigating the city as a tourist can be challenging. Signage, language, distribution of sites, use of the intelligent transport system, accessing information about up-to-date information on culture all remain challenging.

Hence, the Taipei City Government is investing in smart technologies for tourism, as part of their UI-Taipei (Ubiquitous & Intelligent Taipei) strategy. New interactive kiosks are being deployed, for example, to help visitors and locals navigate the city and receive up-to-date information.

Taipei is looking for solutions that can help, by technologies and new processes and services make the city more accessible as a tourist destination. Solutions that can help visitors navigate the city and its cultural, commercial and touristic content as well as make up-to-date opportunities available would add significant value. Further, digital services have the potential to add significant statistical intelligence to the city, by offering high-resolution tourist statistics that could help plan future investments in services, attractions and mobility more effectively.