News source: text - walking on the island, reporter - Xiao Zihan

News link:green media

The island walk held a 10th anniversary press conference at Ye Jinfa Store in Dadaocheng on June 7, 2022. The team took "return and start again" as its appeal, hoping to unite more partners to get to know their land through "walking" and work together Create sustainability, move towards the next decade, and continue to display the perspective of "from cultural preservation to finding contemporary cultural value" through actions.

"In the beginning, I really just wanted to introduce Dadaocheng to more people." Qiu Yi, CEO of Island Walk, said that ten years ago, most of the restored old houses in Dadaocheng were still empty, and there were no buildings. A cultural and creative store and Wenqing Coffee opened in Tainan. At that time, he had already experienced the nascent old house sightseeing and old city life many times in Tainan. Growing up in Dadaocheng, he originally worked in a travel agency. He saw that domestic tourism was becoming more and more popular at that time, but it also led to the issue of "over-tourism": it caused environmental damage and disgusted local residents; the old streets were full of homogeneity. However, it fails to show the local cultural characteristics, etc., and it is impossible to truly understand the local history and cultural context.

Seeing this, Qiu Yi held a deep love for the land and his hometown. In 2012, he began to promote Dadaocheng walking tours and founded "Taipei City Walking". He designed more than 300 guided tours and accumulated a number of receptions. Forty-five thousand people. In 2019, "Island Walk" was established to expand the field of in-depth tours to the entire Taiwan. Continue to lead domestic and foreign tourists to have a deep understanding of every corner of this land.

Qiu Yi said that the two years of starting the business were an exploratory period. The original target was domestic and foreign tourists from outside Taipei. As a result, more than 80% of the visitors were from Taipei. Tourists who participated in the guided tour at that time all had the same opinion: "It turns out that Taipei has such a side. We don't understand our own city so well."

Different from ordinary travel brands, Island Walk hopes to lead participants to "respect local perspectives" and understand life stories in every corner of Taiwan. It has also influenced more than 1,500 students through guide training to find partners who share the same philosophy. Promote sustainable travel and faithfully present the appearance of places. Not only travel, but also cooperating with enterprises to create ESG sustainable value and helping enterprises practice sustainable consumption. In 2021, it has received more than 205 groups and more than 9,500 corporate customers.

Island Walk also accepts commissions from companies, allowing companies to increasingly focus on practicing sustainable values, and through joint brand initiatives and actions, achieve sustainability and create value together. For example: collaborating with the Zeppelin Foundation on "Sustainability × Travel" to promote local culture in Tamsui; or collaborating with the TSMC Charitable Foundation, which has long been concerned about rural education and local cultivation issues, to integrate local culture into the education of rural children. During the epidemic period, the online format broke through space constraints, allowing volunteers to maintain emotional connection with children remotely and continue to tell the stories of this land to them.

All along, island walks echo the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and propose two sustainable travel principles: place creation and business development. At the scene, Island Walk also independently released the "Sustainability Report" as a social enterprise, revealing "team sustainability", "sharing good things with the place", "accompanying customers to understand the land deeply", "participating in public issues", and " The sustainable theme of the five major aspects of "seeking the mutual benefit of culture and environment". Qiu Yi said that this may be one of the few sustainability reports in Taiwan that talks about sustainable travel.

The Island Walk also grandly launched three small topic tours at this time to implement the three major topics in the report: "Cultural Assets, Water Resources, and Food"; the locations were chosen to be held in Taipei, Hsinchu, and Yunjianan respectively, symbolizing the island Three local bases for walking within. The three routes are not only close to local life, but also allow participants to get to know their homes again through "walking".

The first cultural assets route was held immediately after the press conference. Starting from Dadaocheng, CEO Qiu Yi recreated the first tour ten years ago, leading everyone to compare the situation before and after ten years and re-understand the Dadaocheng where they were born and raised. Cheng, there were even neighbors who participated in the first Dadaocheng event ten years ago to participate in the grand event, which was extremely warm.

In the past, Island Walk has designed itineraries focusing on issues such as homosexuality, women, and international human rights, integrating diverse values into cultural translation; it has also planned children's activity courses for schools, publishing houses, day care classes, self-study groups and other educational institutions, using She got to know her hometown by traveling; she also collaborated with the Fine Arts Department of the National Normal University to implement the "Excellence Pilot Project for Cross-Field Aesthetic Education", integrating gender equality issues into Dadaocheng where the first generation of professional women emerged, and providing teachers with extension topics to teach The concept of sustainability is passed on to the next generation through educators.

In the future, Island Walk declares that it will move forward with the concept of sustainability, respect local communities, the environment, and cultural assets, achieve the best balance between business and locality, and continue to pay attention to more diverse sustainability issues, carry forward corporate social responsibility, and create Sustainable "shared values".