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Quality of life and better tourism

The number of people going on tours within Taiwan during the Lunar New Year period was twice as great as the corresponding figure last year. Many vacation spots were packed with people. This indicates that ample room exists for developing the domestic tourism market.

It is just that in the past the people of Taiwan have never made any effort to do so. If the government were to place more emphasis on this market, it would not only create many job opportunities in various regions, but also significantly improve the quality of life in Taiwan. It could also bolster the nation's identity.

When the DPP first came to power, the Economic Planning and Development Council's (EPDC, 經建會) blueprint for transforming Taiwan into a Green Silicon Island suggested that domestic tourism was a core industry capable of improving income distribution and quality of life in Taiwan. Before the New Year, the EPDC drafted a plan for the development of domestic tourism. If these plans were put into effect, domestic tourism would experience speedy development.

But, just as with the development of other industries, some in this country do not seem to favor self-reliance. Rather, they hope to make easy money with outside help. So some have suggested opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists. Indeed, following a Cabinet reshuffle last year, the Cabinet raised the proposal for a second time as a means to increase the number of foreign tourists.

This dependency mentality is impractical and could cause people, obsessed with unrealistic goals, to overlook the feasibility of developing the domestic market. In particular, the proposal to bring in large numbers of Chinese tourists risks a major disaster in exchange for negligible gain.

Information on domestic tourism ought to be more accessible than that on overseas tourism, while the costs of domestic tourism should be lower than foreign tourism. Less traveling time should be involved as well. There already are fewer or no language barriers for travelers within their own country.

So, while domestic tourism may be less exotic, it should still attract a lot of people. But there is no denying that tourism in Taiwan is relatively expensive and tourism information is often difficult to obtain.

All the popular scenic spots either experience severe traffic congestion or are difficult to access because admission tickets are hard find. Stories abound of unscrupulous businessmen or ticket scalpers defrauding consumers. If these problems are not dealt with, many people will quite naturally continue to prefer to travel abroad rather than within Taiwan.

Under these circumstances, it is very difficult to attract a large number of foreign tourists. So the development of the tourist industry should follow a pragmatic course, targeting the domestic market at first and seeking to remedy whatever problems and shortcomings are encountered in that process.

Traffic congestion in scenic spots could be significantly improved if sizable investments are made in the public transport system and appropriate traffic control and route planning are implemented.

During this past Lunar New Year holiday, traffic-control measures banned ordinary vehicles from entering the Taroko Gorge area. Instead, bus passengers were allowed to alight the buses and tour on foot in the area, making for great convenience and fun, as well as helping the tourism industry. This measure should be put into practice in more scenic spots.

As for any complaints resulting from the traffic-control measures, so as long as the government enhances public education and sign posting, restricts vehicular access, further reduces speed limits and/or introduces road tolls, some of the problems would be immediately alleviated.

The government should also help the tourist industry to prepare more complete and accessible traveling and tour information. As far as tourism is concerned, while many books have been published, the availability of information is still inadequate.

There is a need at least to compile and provide to tourists schedules of public transportation in different areas and information on hotels and motels. It would be ideal if, as in Japan, a computer system could be developed to help individuals map out potential transport routes or even to make hotel reservations.

The government could of course also make good use of existing religious or cultural festivities or large-scale sporting, cultural or business events to attract tourists to Taiwan's many and varied regions. The Yenshui Fireworks Festival (鹽水蜂炮) for example, brings at least 100,000 tourists to the area on the day of the Lantern Festival.

With the government's budgets currently so limited, it would be hard to improve the buildings and other "hardware" at all the scenic spots. In the short term, therefore, the government should select some key problem sites that could be quickly developed into attractive model tourism spots, and concentrate its resources there, so that local governments and the people have something to follow and learn from. To attract tourists, they will naturally try to keep up with the model tourism spots and mobilize their resources to improve their tourism attractions.

If the government is willing to make all the necessary changes, in view of the fact that more than 8 million Taiwanese travel abroad each year, spending nearly US$10 billion, so long as some of these people and money flow back home, an enormous local market and significant numbers of job opportunities would be created.

This ignores the fact, moreover, that we Taiwanese need a lot of vacation spots for short or spur-of-the-moment type of vacations anyway, but have long been opting to stay at home due to the inconvenience involved in domestic travel. If reasonable and comprehensive improvements can be made to the domestic tourism industry, these potential business opportunities could spawn further business opportunities and the quality of people's lives will also be improved.

Unfortunately, many officials and members of the tourism industry do not give any thought to these opportunities that lie before them. Instead, they keep on fantasizing about the Chinese government opening up tourism to Taiwan.

They don't seem to understand that, as long as the conditions for tourism in Taiwan do not improve, few Chinese would come even if the Chinese government allowed them to. Some say that if the Chinese government allowed one million tourists to visit Taiwan each year, the people of Taiwan would be better off by some NT$20 billion a year.

But, the number of Chinese tourists traveling anywhere abroad last year totaled less than 4 million. Two-thirds of them were simply visiting scenic spots close to Chinese borders. How many Chinese tourists would be allowed to visit and how many actually would do so remain unknown.

If 20 percent of Taiwan's own overseas-bound tourists were to confine their tourism to Taiwan's shores, on the other hand, a further 1.6 million people a year would be availing themselves of Taiwan's tourism services, generating close to NT$60 billion in income, not to mention the potential for new markets

So the development of domestic tourism is the way to go. Those who do not see this, and make wild dreams about attracting Chinese tourists with direct links will do more harm than good. Once direct links are established, probably very few Chinese tourists will come to Taiwan, while more and more Taiwanese tourists will rush off to tour China and throw their money around there, causing local tourism and local consumer spending to decline further. In the end, the people of Taiwan will lose both ways. Why do something so foolish?
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