City councilors Huang Hsiang-chun, Hsu Shu-hua, and Lee Chien-chang said the ad campaign had ruined the city's image, the United Evening News reported.

The city had run a five-week advertising campaign in a weekly magazine targeting the readership in southern China, in which Taiwan was portrayed as a place full of "sex," the Taiwan-based newspaper said.

In one of them ads, it was said that Taipei's "girls are all sexy girls," the paper said. In another, it was said that "all girls show their cleavage," the paper added.

The councilors likened the ads to a controversial Japanese book published several years ago detailing sex activities in Taipei.

"This (ad campaign) is a huge shame for Taipei," the councilors were cited by the paper as saying.

A Taipei tourism official, Hsiao Chun-chieh, admitted that his department had failed to screen the ad contents before they were published, the paper reported.

The government has already paid the NT$180,000 fee for the ad campaign, and there is no way the money can be retrieved, the official said.