Political disputes since the presidential election are taking their toll on the nation's tourism industry, with large numbers of foreign visitors cancelling their trips, travel companies said yesterday.
"The large-scale demonstrations have dragged the number of foreign visitors back to the same level as during the SARS outbreak last year," Johnson Tseng (
Although the rallies launched by the opposition parties have not caused major disruptions, media coverage of the incidents has scared away visitors, especially Japanese tourists, Tseng said, adding that Japanese visitors account for more than one-third of Taiwan's foreign tourists.
A group of 12 travel agencies said that business has dropped by 80 percent. On Sunday the group called on Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Sean Chuang (莊秀石), chairman of the International Tourist Hotels Association of Taipei (臺北市觀光旅館商業同業公會) and president of the Leofoo Development Co that runs the Westin Taipei (六福皇宮), confirmed that half of the bookings for the hotel from Japanese customers have been cancelled.
"We have already seen severe losses over the SARS outbreak, and do not wish the political turmoil to continue to hurt our business," he said.
Chuang said the sector was expecting a boom after the Tourism Bureau targeted 2004 as the "Visit Taiwan Year," aiming to boost the number of foreign visitors for the year to 3.2 million.
There were 2.9 million overseas visitors to Taiwan in 2002, and the number declined to 2.2 million last year due to the SARS epidemic, according to bureau statistics.
The bureau will find it tough to achieve its goal, as statistics showed there were only 664,000 visitors to the nation for the first three months of this year.
Huang Ching-hui (
But Huang acknowledged that the measure failed to placate foreign travelers.
As the bureau has already budgeted NT$1 billion to promote "Visit Taiwan Year," as well as offering a series discounts to lure foreign visitors, Huang said the bureau will not propose further incentives at the moment, adding that the political tensions seems to be easing.
Meanwhile, citizens have postponed outbound travel until after May 20, the date of President Chen Shui-bian's (
"We can only keep our fingers crossed that the political disturbance won't last throughout the year," Hsu said.
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