The number of South Korean tourists arriving in Taiwan increased by 13 percent this year from last year, after the Tourism Bureau ramped up its promotion of Taiwan as a tourist destination in South Korea.
This year, the bureau has invited Korean actor Jo Jung-suk and Taiwanese actress Ivy Chen (陳意涵) to become its representatives in the hope of drawing South Korean visitors, mainly targeting women and the potential market of independent travelers.
A short film featuring both Jo and Chen successfully brought more South Korean visitors to Taiwan this year, totaling 169,186 visitors in the first seven months of this year, the bureau said.
Photo: Dentsu Inc
Of that number, 107,427 came to Taiwan as tourists, up nearly 20 percent year-on-year.
The growth in South Korean visits to Taiwan outpaced the country’s overall outbound traveler growth of 9.4 percent.
It was expecting the number of South Korean visitors to exceed 270,000 by the end of the year, the bureau said.
The number of tourists the short film had brought to Taiwan exceeded the number of tourists that the bureau representatives in 2006 to 2008, popular boy band F4, had drawn, including 550,000 Japanese tourists and 150,000 South Korean tourists in the first half of 2008, the bureau said.
F4 made their name after shooting the Taiwanese TV drama series Meteor Garden (流星花園) 12 years ago.
However, the bureau said that the increase did not show that Korean stars are more charismatic than F4, because they featured in Taiwan tourism advertisements during different economic times.
The bureau’s promotion plans have been more successful than expected, bureau officials added.
Bureau officials said that the South Korean variety show Flower H4 had also visited Taiwan in July to shoot some scenes, visiting Tamsui (淡水), Taroko Gorge, Taipei 101 and the National Palace Museum.
The first episode of the show aired in South Korea by Total Variety Network on Aug. 23 topped the view ratings at 9.8 percent, the bureau said, adding that the second episode would feature Sunny, a member of the popular Girls’ Generation pop group.
Many South Korean travel agencies already offer tour packages to Taiwan, bureau officials added.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods