The nation may welcome its 8 millionth international visitor of the year by the end of this month, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau had set a goal of having 7.7 million international tourists visit the nation this year, which was met on Saturday.
Vice Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said last week that he hoped the bureau could reach 8 million international visitors this year.
Based on the bureau’s statistics, the nation needs another 20,000 to 25,000 international tourists to hit the 8 million mark.
The bureau forecast that the 8 millionth visitor could either arrive on Dec. 31 or Jan.1, adding that it would use the holiday season as an opportunity to meet the goal.
Further analysis of the statistics showed that about 70 percent of the international visitors came to the nation this year for tourism.
Meanwhile, China has emerged as the nation’s No. 1 source of tourists from overseas. About 2.58 million Chinese tourists came to Taiwan last year, with that number being matched by last month.
Although China’s implementation of a tourism law in October caused the number of Chinese tourists arriving in tour groups to decrease, the increase in the number of free independent travelers visiting from China more than compensated for the loss.
Tourists from Japan, the nation’s second-largest source of international tourists, declined due to the devaluation of the Japanese yen.
To encourage more Japanese tourists to visit Taiwan, the bureau said it had stepped up its tourism campaigns in the second half of this year.
The number of Japanese tourists stabilized again in September and it could exceed 1.4 million this year, the bureau added.
The bureau forecast that the number of tourists from Singapore and Malaysia could grow by 10 percent this year, despite the limited availability of direct flights.
The number of South Korean tourists is forecast to increase by 30 percent this year.
The bureau said South Korea has seen highest growth thanks to the appreciation of South Korea won, an increased number of direct flights and marketing campaigns.
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
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
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