Crowds swamp travel expo venue as people queue for three hours just to buy “discounted meal vouchers”!

Reported by Chen Tzu-yin / Taipei

The 2014 Taipei International Travel Fair (ITF) kicked off today (7th), and besides Hall 1 of the World Trade Center, the hotel and leisure resort exhibition area in Hall 3 also drew massive crowds, packing the venue. Ticket sales to the public opened at 12 p.m., but people had started queuing before 9 a.m., all eager to snap up exclusive discounted meal vouchers or accommodation packages available only at the travel fair. Among them, the booths of Silks Club Hotels & Resorts and The House Hospitality Group saw especially long queues, making them the hottest spots at the entire event.

 
▲ Aside from Hall 1, the hotel exhibition area in Hall 3 also saw crowds scrambling to buy meal vouchers. (Photo / Reporter Chen Tzu-yin)

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Mr. Lee, a member of the public, said he specifically bought a ticket to enter the fair in order to purchase the previously super-popular meal vouchers from The House Bistro, but ended up waiting in line for a full three and a half hours to get the vouchers he wanted. Meanwhile, the ever-popular Silks Club Hotels & Resorts booths were also crowded with buyers. In the entire Hall 3 exhibition area, it was estimated that there were thousands of people “queuing just to buy meal vouchers,” with many snapping up 10 or even 20 sets of vouchers at once. A spokesperson from The House Hospitality Group said that this year, the organizers invited major corporations to visit the fair for the first time, and one company alone placed an order worth as much as 3 million NTD, which is quite impressive.

In addition, on-site hotel reception staff said that besides being able to pre-select and reserve preferred meal voucher combinations via the hotels’ official websites in advance, some meal vouchers have expiration dates. Although many vouchers now come with a standardized contract allowing refunds, it is still advised that the public carefully consider whether they can use them within the validity period, as the originally selected menus may also change due to seasonal availability. If there is no special need for extra on-site discounts (like gifts or added promotions), many hotel websites also offer meal voucher purchases online, which can help save time spent queuing.