Taichung Shopping Voucher

While cities everywhere raced toward apps, mobile payment and AI-targeted marketing, Taichung went the other way. It printed a voucher.

The offer is one sentence long. Pay NT$100 (US$3.30) in cash, get a NT$200 (US$6.60) voucher, spend it at traditional markets, night markets, shopping districts and local shops. No app, no account, no QR code. Behind the counter the city runs anti-counterfeiting, redemption, reconciliation and impact tracking, and pays for all of it. In front of the counter, taking a voucher is exactly like taking cash.

That promise has now run eight times in four years, across all 29 districts, under one identity and one public commitment from the mayor: a Shopping Voucher every year. Three phrases carry it. Easy to buy, easy to use, great value.

2.5 million vouchers issued. 1.25 million visits to distribution points. Every round fully taken up. NT$500M (US$16.7M) redeemed and reconciled at nearly 10,000 small businesses, 99.7% of every voucher issued. Vendor revenue rose 20 to 30 percent during each round. Distribution reached Lishan, 2,000 metres up in the mountains. In 2025, satisfaction and spending-boost approval both passed 80 percent.

Then the campaign stopped behaving like a campaign. "Got yours yet?" became a seasonal greeting across the city. Nineteen city councillors, from opposing parties, filmed their own promotional videos. The Fengjia Night Market committee paid out of its own pocket for 3,000 extra vouchers. After the 2024 Hualien earthquake, Taichung set aside 1,200 vouchers for a dedicated relief zone, so ordinary shopping in one city helped rebuild another on the far side of the island.

More than 10 cities and counties across Taiwan have copied the model on their own initiative.

The lesson is not that paper beats digital. It is that if the point of a campaign is that everyone takes part, then everyone has to be able to take part.