Chinese visitors were the biggest contributors to Taipei’s tourism market, spending an average of US$356 per day, followed by tourists from Japan and Singapore who spent US$254 and US$189 respectively, a Taipei City Government survey showed.
Average spending by foreign tourists in Taipei was US$251 per day. Local specialty products, clothing and jewelry were the top three items on foreign travelers’ shopping lists, according to the survey conducted between July and December last year, which polled 1,832 foreign visitors.
Taipei City Department of Information and Tourism Commissioner Chao Hsin-ping (趙心屏) said souvenir shops, such as those that sell pineapple cakes and Taiwanese tea, have thrived thanks to increased spending by foreign tourists.
Photo: CNA
Republic of China Travel Agent Association secretary-general Roger Hsu (許高慶) said that aside from local specialties, Chinese tour groups also purchased coral products and brand watches, while tourists from Japan, Hong Kong and Macau preferred tea sets and handicrafts.
A closer look at daily consumption by foreign tourists also showed that visitors from Japan, Singapore, the US and Europe were willing to invest more on accommodation, with Japanese visitors spending about US$96 per day, while Chinese tourists only spent US$25.
Hsu agreed with the results of the survey, saying that most Chinese visitors come in tour groups and shopping is a major part of their trips. Visitors from Japan, Singapore and the US, on the other hand, tend to have higher expectations about hotel accommodation.
“As the government plans to increase the number of individual Chinese tourists allowed to visit each day, the consumption habits of Chinese tourists may change in the future,” he said.
At present, Chinese tourists arriving in tour groups are capped at 4,000 people per day, while those arriving as free independent travelers (FIT) are capped at 1,000.
The government plans to increase the number of group Chinese tourists to 5,000 per day and FITs to 2,000.
Of the 6.4 million foreign visitors to Taipei last year, Chinese tourists accounted for 2.5 million, followed by Japanese tourists at 1.3 million.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater