Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said yesterday the nation aims to have at least 10 million tourists visit each year by 2015, adding that the nation should treat free and independent travelers (FIT) from China with a good attitude.
“At the initial stage, we are only allowing 500 FITs daily, which is not many,” Mao said at a ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the nation’s Tourism Bureau. “We will just need to continue what we are doing and improve it gradually.”
A former director-general of the bureau, Mao said it has changed the way people think about tourism.
“When I took office, the Tourism Bureau was still considered by many a dispensable agency and people could live with or without it,” Mao said. “People started noticing us more after we started hosting the Taiwan Lantern Festival (台灣燈會).”
Aside from the Taiwan Lantern Festival, the bureau also launched the Taiwan Culinary Exhibition in 1989. The event is scheduled for August this year.
Statistics from the Tourism Bureau showed that the nation broke the 1 million tourists a year benchmark in 1976. However, it took another 13 years until the nation broke the 2 million tourists per year figure.
Taiwan did not reach the 3 million per year benchmark until 2005, but four years after that, the nation surpassed the 4 million mark and it reached the 5 million benchmark just a year after that.
Last year, about 5.58 million tourists visited nation, according to statistics from the bureau.
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