Ministry of Education officials are all smiles during a Taiwan brand international sports events workshop held June 21 in Taipei City. (Courtesy of MOE)
 

An international sports events workshop was held June 21 in Taipei City, spotlighting government efforts to foster transformation of competitions and explore methods of integrating them with a city’s image, according to the Ministry of Education.

Organized by the MOE’s Sports Administration, the one-day event was attended by organizers of sporting contests and city representatives from countries including Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and the Netherlands. It featured keynote speakers Chen Mei-yen, host of the MOE’s Fun Sports in Taiwan project, who reviewed the workshop’s past achievements; and Paul Bollen, manager of Alkmaar Sport, who shared his experience managing sports events in the region of the Netherlands for which his organization is responsible.

Four seminars were also held at the workshop, including one from Chen on the importance of city marketing and another led by President Kao Chin-hsung of southern Taiwan’s Nanhua University exploring cross-field sports cooperation models from the tourism perspective. The other two seminars discussed the technology impact on the sports industry using the example of tennis, and offered attendees the opportunity to analyze and share specifics about past sporting events in their experience.

According to the SA, the workshop facilitates the integration of resources from diverse sectors and strengthens Taiwan’s international exchanges. Holding international sports events can also help drive urban economic and tourism development, the administration added.

Two more workshops will be staged Aug. 9 and Nov. 8, the SA said, adding that the ASPN Sports Tech Accelerator operated by National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University will join the first as a co-organizer, and that more participants from Canada, Lithuania, Japan and South Korea are expected to attend the two events. (YCH-E)