The Presidential Office Building’s permanent exhibition has seen fewer tourists from China since reopening on Sept. 18 last year following extensive renovations to the building.
The number of Chinese tourists fell from 51.9 percent of exhibition visitors to 20.3 percent since the transfer of power in May last year, Presidential Office statistics showed.
The number of Japanese and South Korean visitors jumped from 6.35 percent to 14.69 percent during the period, while the number of visitors from Hong Kong and Macao rose from 2.6 percent to 3.3 percent.
Photo: David Chang, EPA
The number of visitors from the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia climbed from 1.41 percent to 2.66 percent and those from Southeast Asia from 0.39 percent to 1.55 percent.
The number of domestic visitors also increased significantly, with those from central and southern Taiwan seeing the largest growth, the statistics showed.
To meet the needs of foreign visitors, the Presidential Office Building said it is looking for volunteers with foreign language skills to provide a more comprehensive tour-guide service as it installs a multi-language audio tour system.
In other tourism news, the number of passengers served by Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport reached 42.3 million last year, putting the nation’s main gateway onto a list of airports serving more than 40 million passengers, according to Taoyuan International Airport Co statistics.
Passengers served by the airport reached 32.21 million in 2013, the first year in which it served more than 30 million.
The numbers increased annually for five consecutive years from 2012, with the rates of increase between 7.45 percent and 11.15 percent. The airport served an average of more than 115,000 passengers per day last year.
It also attracted six budget carriers last year — AirAsia Philippines, Eastar Jet, Jin Air and T’way Air of South Korea, JetStar Pacific Airlines of Vietnam and the Malaysian-Indonesian joint venture Malindo Air — which shows that airlines in Southeast and Northeast Asian countries are interested in the Taiwanese market, officials said.
The airport company has begun a project to expand the size of Terminal Two, which is scheduled to be completed in June 2018, while construction of a third terminal is expected to be completed in 2020.
The company is also conducting an environmental impact assessment on a possible third runway.
Last year it was announced that the airport won the second place in the 2015 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Award for “Best Airport by Size: 25-40 Million Passengers” awarded by the Airports Council International, based on its ASQ passenger satisfaction survey.
First place was shared by two Indian airports, one in New Delhi and the other in Mumbai.
The first place in the “Best Airport by Size: Over 40 Million Passengers” category was shared by Incheon Airport in South Korea and Singapore’s Changi Airport, while second place went to Shanghai Pudong Airport and Beijing Airport in China.
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) last month said the Taoyuan airport needed to provide better services for passengers to compete with other airports serving more than 40 million passengers.
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