The Tourism Bureau plans to launch a campaign to attract Muslim tourists with the target of luring 2,000 Muslims annually in the initial years, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The bureau held a seminar yesterday to introduce the untapped market of Muslim tourists to local travel agents and to discuss strategies that would help attract more Muslim tourists, the United Daily News said.
“There are millions of Muslims in the world who live in India, Malaysia, the Middle East and Arab countries. The potential is huge,” bureau official Liu Hsi-lin (劉喜臨) was quoted as saying.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
REPRESENTATIVES
He was joined by some 150 representatives from hotels, restaurants, recreational farms and the local Muslim community.
“Today’s seminar is just the start of a series of efforts that the Tourism Bureau will make to tap into the huge Muslim tourist market,” Liu said.
The report said Taiwan has designed three package-tour routes for Muslim tourists and will upgrade facilities at these tourist spots to meet the needs of Muslim visitors.
Taiwan has 60,000 native Muslims as well as 150,000 Muslim workers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. There are six mosques around the nation.
Attracting Muslim tourists is part of plans to boost inbound tourism, which has been hurt by the global economic downturn.
Last year, the nation saw 3.84 million foreign visitors, falling short of its goal of 4 million.
HALAL
In addition to inviting international Muslim clerics and experts to carry out on-site inspections and plan special itineraries for Muslim tourists, the Chinese Moslem Association in Taiwan is also planning to launch a Halal certification system so that every Muslim visitor can rest assured that they are eating foods consistent with their faith in Taiwan.
Food companies are also being encouraged to produce and export Halal food products to Muslim countries, the report said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS