China’s second-largest direct marketing company, Perfect (China) Commodity Co, is in the process of sending 130 tour groups, consisting of a total of 5,200 people, to Taiwan over a five day period.
While this may seem like a lot of people, statistics from the Tourism Bureau paint a different picture of Chinese tourists.
On Wednesday, the bureau released a report on the spending habits of tourists who visited Taiwan last year.
The report showed that Chinese tourists spent more on shopping here than Japanese tourists, spending an average of US$117 per day, approximately equivalent to NT$3,800, which was 50 percent more than tourists from Malaysia, who were listed as spending the second most on shopping.
However, the report showed that Japanese tourists spent the most on accommodation and food, spending an average of NT$10,000 per day in these areas, which was 35 percent more than tourists from China.
According to the report, one million Japanese tourists visited Taiwan last year, which was a drop off of approximately 8 percent from 2008.
Japanese tourists still contributed the most foreign income to Taiwan’s economy, accounting for a total of NT$60 billion, the report showed.
Chinese tourists were listed as second, with 970,000 visiting Taiwan, almost double the number in 2008, bringing in approximately NT$51 billion.
The bureau’s statistics showed that after the decision two years ago to allow Chinese tourists to travel to Taiwan, the increase in Chinese tourists has corresponded to a drop in the overall amount of money spent by tourists in Taiwan.
The bureau said that with the increase in the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan, the influence of their expenditures on Taiwan’s economy has increased.
The Chinese tourists who initially visited Taiwan were those with high incomes, but now lower income Chinese are coming and this has naturally led to a decrease in the overall spend per tourist.
The report showed 4.39 million people visited Taiwan last year and spending a total of US$6.8 billion (NT$219 billion), an increase of approximately 14 percent and the highest amount Taiwan has ever made from tourism.
The report also showed that last year, tourists who came to Taiwan for business, in tour groups and those who visited individually spent an average of US$216, approximately NT$7,000 per day, on accommodation, food, transport and shopping.
Meanwhile, the first tour group from Perfect (China) Commodity Co, made up of 440 people, arrived at Kaohsiung Siaogang Airport on Thursday and proceeded to travel by bus to Kenting and elsewhere.
However, the nine-day trip to Taiwan does not include Kaohsiung and Tainan. When asked, tour members said they didn’t know whether political factors were a factor.
China appears to have built mockups of a port in northeastern Taiwan and a military vessel docked there, with the aim of using them as targets to test its ballistic missiles, a retired naval officer said yesterday. Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former lieutenant commander in Taiwan’s navy, wrote on Facebook that satellite images appeared to show simulated targets in a desert in China’s Xinjiang region that resemble the Suao naval base in Yilan County and a Kidd-class destroyer that usually docks there. Lu said he compared the mockup port to US naval bases in Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan, and in Subic Bay
Police are investigating the death of a Formosan black bear discovered on Tuesday buried near an industrial road in Nantou County, with initial evidence indicating that it was shot accidentally by a hunter. The bear had been caught in wildlife traps at least five times before, three times since 2020. Codenamed No. 711, the bear received extensive media coverage last year after it was discovered trapped twice in less than two months in the Taichung mountains. After its most recent ensnarement last month, the bear was released in the Dandashan (丹大山) area in Nantou County’s Sinyi Township (信義). However, officials became concerned after the
DETERRENCE: US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said cross-strait affairs are on the agenda at the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked the Czech Senate for passing a resolution supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and other international organizations for the second consecutive year. The resolution was passed on Wednesday with 51 votes in favor, one opposed and 11 abstentions. In addition to the WHO, it also called for Taiwan’s participation in the “meetings, mechanisms and activities” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol. In its opening, the resolution states that the Czech Republic “considers Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” while noting its
About 300 members of the Pilots Union Taoyuan and their families yesterday rallied outside the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) in Taipei to protest against not being allowed to take COVID-19 rapid tests instead of undergoing home quarantine. The CECC on April 27 announced a shortened quarantine period for Taiwan-based airline crew members. The new policy applies to crew members who have received a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at least 14 days prior and requires them to undergo four days of quarantine followed by four days of self-health management for those returning from long-haul flights, and five days of
RSS