The biggest reason why Chinese tourists choose to travel to Taiwan is because of the sense of mystery that has been created about the nation in China, but when the veil of mystery has lifted, the number of visitors from China will drop significantly, academics said yesterday.
They called on the public not to be overly optimistic about economic benefits that Chinese tourists would bring or to make investments in haste.
Lin Yueh-hsiu (林玥秀), a professor in the Department of Sports and Leisure Studies at Donghua University, said that Taiwan is attractive to Chinese mainly because of its mystery, resulting from years of restricted contacts and the emotional attachment to Taiwan that Chinese feel based on historical background.
PHOTO: AP
Lin said that Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and Japan were among the favorite destinations for Chinese tourists. The characteristics of these regions and countries include ready access to shopping malls, convenient public transportation, simple visa applications, exotic cultures and low prices, which have attracted many Chinese.
Wu Cheng-he (吳政和), dean of the Department of Tourism at Providence University, said for the immediate future, quite a few Chinese tourists will want to come and visit Taiwan and therefore the tourism market would see growth.
However, with the number of middle-aged and senior Chinese who remember the Civil War and the confrontation between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party withering over time, the number of Chinese tourists would gradually decrease, he said.
In related news, a number of stores in Nantou County have complained that Chinese tourists tend to haggle over prices and talk loudly in public. Some restaurants near Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) said they had to stop offering late night meals because of bad experiences with Chinese tourists who constantly haggled over prices before ordering food.
However, a few restaurants said they had also seen occasions where Chinese tourists were generous and had good manners.
More than 700 Chinese tourists, reporters and government officials arrived in Taiwan on Friday aboard the first weekend charter flights between China and Taiwan. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has pledged to expand the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan to 3,000 a day, up from 1,000 per day.
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