Modeling daily visits to the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition

The 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition (Flora Expo) was held in several urban parks in the center of the city. Over the course of the Expo, substantial variation was observed in the number of visitors per day. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors associated with the daily number of visitors to the Flora Expo. Our results suggest that there were periodic changes in the number of daily visits over time as well as with differences between the days of the week. In addition, temperature, duration of sunshine and precipitation were significantly correlated with the number of daily visits. Regression models suggest that the day of the week, long holiday, proximity to the closing date, temperature, duration of sunshine and hours of rainfall showed strong correlation with daily visits. Higher visits were recorded on Saturdays, Sundays and long holidays. When the temperature at noon increased by 1 °C, an average of 1435 additional visits was recorded. When the duration of sunshine increased by 1 h, an average of 895 additional visits was recorded. Approximately 1232 fewer visits were recorded when the duration of rainfall increased by 1 h. Our results also show significant closing effects on daily visits over the last four weeks. These findings may provide useful information for the operation and management of similar festivals in urban parks and help managers to accurately assess and predict the number of visitors.