In a bid to lure more foreign tourist dollars to Taiwan, the government has turned its focus on young travellers, industry veterans said yesterday.
Tourism in Taiwan has become a mature market with a large number of available hostels and hotels, said Stanley Yen (嚴長壽), honorary chairman of the Taiwan Visitors Association (台灣觀光協會), at a press conference held to announce the upcoming Taipei International Travel Fair.
However, Yen said that relying on domestic tourism can only reduce vacancy rates on the weekends, when locals flock to Taiwan's tourist hotspots.
"We need to explore another niche market," Yen said.
Yen said that three years ago the government began to pool resources from schools, language centers and hostel operators to attend global seminars on how to attract younger travelers to Taiwan.
"Learning Chinese has become fashionable around the world. We should take advantage of this to develop language learning travel," he said.
As cheap and convenient lodging and transportation is essential for luring backpackers, the government has aimed to improve hostels' service quality.
Also, hostel operators have been advised to create a backpacker-friendly environment by offering lockers and renting out cheap single beds in dorm rooms, instead of only single rooms.
The Tourism Bureau has designated next year as the Taiwan Youth Travel Year, hoping to make the nation the hottest destination in Asia for backpackers.
"We aim to attract 1.25 million young travelers in 2008, or one-fourth of the total inbound tourists during that year," said Steven Kuo Su (
To boost the nation's tourism sector, the Cabinet launched a six-year project in 2002, aiming to double the number of foreign tourists visiting the country to 5 million by 2008.
Youth travel will also be one of the highlights during the four-day Taipei International Travel Fair, scheduled to run from next Thursday through Sunday at Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall I.
The expo will be the biggest ever, with 516 travel-related organizations from 58 countries and regions showcasing their tourism attractions and offering one-stop-shopping services for travel lovers, said the event organizer, the Taiwan Visitors Association.
Forty percent of the 784 booths will be occupied by foreign exhibitors, with Japan the largest exhibitor.
The expo will be the biggest ever, with 516 travel-related organizations
from 58 countries and regions showcasing their tourism attractions and
offering one-stop-shopping services for travel lovers, said the event
organizer, the Taiwan Visitors Association.
Forty percent of the 784 booths will be occupied by foreign exhibitors, with
Japan the largest exhibitor.
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