Creative gifts bring booming business for museum shops
Visitors to the National Palace Museum (NPM) crowd into the museum’s gift shop searching for “treasures.” One woman initially examines keychains with a design imitating the famous Ching dynasty “Jadeite Cabbage with Insects, ” but then turns her attention to silk bed linen imprinted with the famous painting “Along the River During the Ching-ming Festival.”
“These products are very creative and have delicate designs, and more importantly, I will not find them elsewhere,” said another tourist.
The number of tourists visiting the National Palace Museum in Taipei has grown rapidly in the past two years. According to government data, the NPM attracted more than 2 million visitors from home and abroad last year. “Most of them are from China, followed by Japan,” according to an NPM official.
The tourists have brought booming business to the NPM’s gift shop; revenue last year reached NT$510 million, and compared to the previous year, revenue for the first half of this year was up 21 percent, according to Ho Chun-huan, managing director of the gift shop.
