A tourism commercial featuring trips to New Taipei City’s Sansia and Yingge districts was among the winners at the Travel Weekly Magellan Awards, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.

The commercial, titled “Taiwan — The Perfect Solo Travel Destination for Culture & Small Towns,” was produced by the Tourism Bureau and the Los Angeles-based Black Buddha Media Group.

The Magellan Awards on Monday last week announced that the ad had won the gold medal in the Asia-Overall Destinations-Culture Arts category.

Prior to this year’s win, its tourism commercials had won silvers at the Magellan Awards in the Eco-Friendly Green Destination category last year and the Asia’s Adventure Destination category in 2018, the bureau said.

Brad Shih, director of the Tourism Bureau’s Los Angeles office, said that the tourism market in the US is changing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Small tour groups and social distancing guidelines would become the “new normal” in the travel industry, Shih said.

The commercial, which was produced last year, targeted “millennials” and “generation Z,” the demographics succeeding millennials and preceding “generation alpha,” he said.

It highlighted safety for women traveling in Taiwan alone, as well as the diversity of Taiwanese culture, depicting a woman visiting Yingge and Sanxia, which are known for their ceramics and historic sites respectively, he said.

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles Director General Louis Huang said that Taiwan is a free and democratic country, with people of different ethnic groups, genders, sexual orientations and faiths enjoying equal rights.

The nation was the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, showing that equality, as well as other advanced values, can take roots in a society in East Asia, Huang said, adding that Taiwan is an eco-friendly and safe destination for women, transit passengers and solo travelers.

Tourism Bureau Director General Chang Shi-chung  said that people around the world are eagerly waiting for borders to reopen so that they can freely travel again.

“We would continue to make all the required preparations for the arrival of international travelers,” Chang said. “We know that Taiwan would be one of the top destinations for international travelers given the nation’s success in containing the spread of the pandemic.”