Although Taiwan’s outbound tourism dropped by nearly 6 percent in July, the number of Taiwanese visitors to Hong Kong edged up 0.6 percent, a Hong Kong Tourism Board official said on Wednesday.
This showed that visits to the Chinese territory had not yet been affected by the commencement of direct weekend charter flights, Terruce Wang (王萬民), director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board in Taiwan, said at a press conference.
“Taiwan is an important source of tourists for Hong Kong. Facing various unfavorable factors this year, such as high oil prices, the economic slowdown and cross-strait direct flights, the Hong Kong government does not dare take them lightly,” Wang said.
To attract more young people to visit Hong Kong, the board said the territory would host a 38-day Halloween bash from next Friday through Nov. 2.
The board has coordinated with five Taiwanese travel agencies and Cathay Pacific Airways to offer attractive deals, with four-day-and-three-night tour packages starting at NT$6,999 per person, Wang said.
Separately, Lion Travel Service Co (雄獅旅行社), a major tour operator in Taiwan, said on Wednesday it was working with the Thailand Tourism Division in Taipei to offer tailor-made honeymoon packages to the Southeast Asian country, targeting newlyweds who want to spend their honeymoon overseas for less money.
High airline ticket prices and inflationary pressure have seen Lion Travel suffer a customer decline of between 8 percent and 9 percent this year from a year earlier, it said.
RSS