E Tai Enterprise Opens Keelung Story Hall for Edutainment

After years of planning and playing a role to build local tourism, coupled with backing governmental policies to transform old, traditional industrial parks into tourist spots to generate higher added-value, E Tai Enterprise Co., Ltd., a 33-year-old company headquartered in Keelung City, northern Taiwan and making sanitation products under its own brand Itai, officially opened the “1560 Keelung Story Hall” on March 21, 2010, as part of its Sanitary Ware Tourist Factory.

Opening the 1560 Keelung Story Hall was a big event in Keelung, attracting many personalities, industry insiders, residents and media. Deputy Economic Minister S.C. Lin, Keelung City Mayor T.R. Chang, legislators K.L. Hsieh and S.C. Kuo, and Chinese National Federation of Industries Chairman W.S. Chen were on-hand to add to the buzz.

Set up with help from the Keelung City Cultural Affairs Bureau, the Story Hall tells the history of Keelung starting from 1560, when the port's name, literally “chicken cage” in Chinese, was mentioned in writings by the Ming Dynasty general Zheng Cheng-gong, the famous seafaring pioneer who captained massive armadas to sail the seas.

History in 26 Events

The centerpiece of the Story Hall is the old Keelung Post Office, an antique-styled building constructed in downtown Keelung during the Japanese colonial period but now a tourist spot, with another 26 Virginian-styled walls used as backdrops to illustrate in chronological order 26 main events in the evolution of Keelung.

With the Story Hall and Japanese Sanitation Ware Showroom completed, Paul Hung, chairman of E Tai, said with enthusiasm that the Sanitation Ware Tourist Factory is more than business but also “edutainment,” as visitors can learn about Taiwan's sanitation ware industry and bathroom cultures of the world through interactive experience. Besides, the factory gives visitors one more reason to come to Keelung, he added.

Sanitation Ware Tourist Factory

Backing the governmental policy to transform traditional industries into “cultural and creative business” has paid off. After retrofitting the old factory into a tourist destination with edutainment value several years ago, despite the decision being seen then as bold, impractical, Hung has never looked back. The tourist factory, the first in the line, has already attracted over 200,000 visitors since its inauguration on July 14, 2007, contributing considerably to corporate development.

Not overlooking business potential, the factory displays and sells a wide spectrum of bathroom products, souvenirs, LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability)-style bathroom products, own-branded products, home spa, and sauna equipment. And making sure to fully capitalize on, especially with foreign visitors, the northern Taiwan tourist trademark: The Queen's Head, a rock formation in the Yeiliu Geological Park on the northern coast not far from Keelung city eroded to actually look like Queen Nefertiti, the factory also contains a replica of the rock.

Besides generating better sales, Itai's tourist factory has also sparked enough side benefits, both tangible and otherwise, to pump new life into the Dawulun Industrial Park, which struggled with decreasing corporate residents, nearly all of which are traditional manufacturers who have moved offshore for cheaper costs since the 1990s.

Hung said that the registered companies once dropped to only 44 from its peak of around 80 when the park opened, threatening the survival of the park, but the Council for Economic Planning and Development and the Council for Cultural Affairs, in light of E Tai's successful tourist factory, have promised US$9.157 million to reinforce infrastructure, hence attracting new tenants, whose number totals 77 companies.

Path to Big Times

E Tai was a typical family-run operation in 1977 that started by making and installing aluminum window and door frames with a modest capital of about US$1,220. After three decades of earnest effort and product diversification, the company has grown into a top-notch supplier of shower doors, faucets, bathtubs and sauna equipment under its own “Itai” brand, now capitalized at over US$9.15 million.

A leader in the line in Taiwan, the firm ships around 3000 sets of shower doors a month, 80% domestically as OBM (original brand manufacturer) and 20% overseas as either OEM (original equipment manufacturer) or ODM (original design manufacturer). Earning deserved accolade, Hung and his younger brother as well as E Tai's president F.H. Hung were named among Taiwan's 16 top entrepreneurs of 2008.

Foreign Partnership

Using a tried-and-true strategy to partner with Japanese brands, the firm is working with Panasonic to distribute the hot-selling “A La Uno S” toilet in Taiwan. The two parties presented the product at the Taipei International Building, Construction & Decoration Exhibition on November 13, 2009, inviting a Japanese actress Chie Tanaka to create celebrity attraction. Launched in 2006 in Japan, this toilet perhaps epitomizes the Japanese obsession with cleanliness in personal hygiene, with the toilet being fully self-cleaning, of a new stain-resistant organic glass, coupled with an innovative flushing system, that also facilitates maintenance and saves water consumption.

Also notable for innovation is the firm's Home Spa series saunas, jointly developed with the ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute), which adopt “far infrared heating” instead of traditional steam-generating furnaces for improved safety and comfort. This series is well received in Europe and is about to be launched in Japan.