Maven not copying empty folders under src\main\webapp folder

I noticed that Maven does not copy empty folders [even after doing a mvn clean package] under src\main\webapp folders. I had created a empty folder under src\main\webapp called exhibit which will be populated with images that are generated during runtime of the web application. So as a workaround, I placed an empty file called markerfile.txt so that Maven started packing the empty folders.

The configuration used is as below.
Maven version: 2.0.9
Java version: 1.6.0_10
OS name: "linux" version: "2.6.27-7-generic" arch: "amd64" Family: "unix"