Tourism factories and fishing brands
Following the implementation of the two-day weekend in Taiwan in 1998, the demand for domestic trips has continuously grown and matured. Under such a development trend, the Ministry of Economic Affairs launched the tourism factory project in 2003 to help guide traditional factories by balancing their business and leisure tourism. Many former agricultural and fishery processing factories in Taiwan have now transformed into new tourism factories, providing traditional industry, processing, and leisure services. As excellent fields where the primary industry is directly connected with consumers, these agricultural and fishery processing factories can be described as important places for the development of six-grade aquaculture, shortening the process from industry to tables.
With the evolution of marketing strategies, in the aquaculture industry aquatic product marketing has been promoted by establishing brands. Moreover, regular or non-regular activities have been derived from the characteristics of fishery and local aquatic products, so as to attract consumers to production fields and increase the incomes of fishing villages and fishermen. They include local seafood tastings, promotion activities, direct sales of set-net fishing grounds, Tian Mama’s restaurants in a fishing village, brands of production-marketing groups, as well as fine aquatic products and specialty outlets of fishermen’s associations. The combination of tourism factory models and aquatic product brands can improve the overall benefits of the industrial value chain.
Taiwan now has many model aquatic tourism factories that can be regarded as important cases at this stage, such as His-ho Third Generation Tourism Factory in Yilan County, Chaolou Fish Tourist Factory in Yunlin County, and Tilapia Ecological and Creative Park in Yunlin County. One feature of these three tourism factories is that they engaged in aquatic products processing in their early stages, but gradually transformed into tourism factories under the guidance and support of the government. Their current services are tour guiding, consumer DIY experiences, production display, and merchandise display. Consumers are able to understand aquaculture management patterns and connotations during the process of participating in activities, so as to identify the industry and consume/buy products. Some technology firms have invested in fisheries in recent years, from aquatic products processing to distribution channels, brand marketing, and tourism factories, such as Anyongxin Restaurant in Yilan County. The activity experience economy formed from the whole process is an important type of fishery brand practice and has become a new type of leisure fishery that can generate tourist benefits and promote further consumption, thus helping aquaculture gain high output value, provide services for tourists and consumer groups, and take advantage of the economic opportunities brought by fishing experiences.
