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Number of Chinese tourists takes tumble

The number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan last year decreased by 18 percent due to tensions in cross-strait relations and sluggish market liberalization progress, according to the Travel Agent Association of Taiwan (TAA), the organization that negotiates with Chinese authorities and manages visa applications for tourist groups.

TAA secretary general Roget Hsu (許高慶) said political tension between Taiwan and China last year and a very opaque policy on opening up the tourism market had a negative effect on Chinese demand to visit Taiwan.

According to the TAA's preliminary statistics, about 81,000 Chinese residents visited Taiwan via a foreign city (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) last year, a decrease of about 18 percent from a year ago.

Although the overwhelming victory of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the parliament election spurred stocks in the tourism category to surge almost 7 percent yesterday, travel agents said the sector is unlikely to see a sudden boost in the number of Chinese tourists in the short run.

"Whether the policy [for opening the tourism market] will experience significant change depends on who will be our new president," Hsu said.

The recent referendum initiatives have also seriously riled China, taking a toll on cross-strait tourism development, another tourism group said.

"Our 10 meetings with mainland authorities have already settled all technical problems. Now the only obstacle is purely political," said Eric Chang (張志遠), mainland affairs director of the Taiwan Tourism Association.

The current policy of demanding a transit point for Chinese tourists instead of direct flights is resulting in multiple fees and poor quality in local services.

"We received lots of complaints from mainland tourists who visited Taiwan during 2005 and 2006. Those who have not yet come wanted to wait until direct flights and consumer protection measures are in place but these policy implementations will have to wait until official negotiations are completed," Chang said.

According to Hsu, the nation's Tourism Bureau set an US$80 per night bottom line for Chinese tourist fees to ensure quality, but after tourists handed in their fees to travel agents in Shenzhen or Hong Kong, the money was split between operators in the transit city and the Taiwanese agents.

"In the end Taiwanese agents only get US$40 per person per night, which is unprofitable," Hsu said. "But when agents cover their costs by taking tourists to shopping areas and using cheap hotels and shuttle buses, the quality of service suffers."

Hsu said the reputation of services for Chinese tourists in Taiwan needs to be restored by a slew of improvements.

Taiwan now caps the number of Chinese tourists at 1,000 per day. According a Tourism Bureau estimate, opening the market to Chinese tourists will create a maximum of NT$60 billion (US$1.86 billion) in business per year for the local economy.
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