The participants at an annual Taiwan-Japan tourism forum, which opened in the Japanese prefecture of Kagawa on Thursday, have agreed to work toward increasing the total number of visitors traveling between the two countries to at least 7 million by 2020.
Last year, the number of Japanese visitors to Taiwan was 1.9 million, an annual increase of 16.5 percent, according to statistics presented at the Taiwan-Japan Tourism Summit Forum.
Meanwhile, the number of Taiwanese visitors to Japan was 4.3 million, representing an increase of 13.1 percent from 2015, the organizers of the four-day forum said.
Photo: CNA
In total, 6.2 million visitors traveled between Japan and Taiwan last year, meeting the goal set at last year’s forum, that was held in Yilan County, the data showed.
The new goal is to increase the number of visitors between the two nations to at least 7 million by 2020, the participants said.
The forum, first held in Taipei in 2008, is rotated between the two nations, and allows tourism officials and representatives of the industry to exchange ideas.
This year, the Taiwan delegation included Tourism Bureau Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉), Representative to Japan and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), Taiwan Visitors’ Association chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), and Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍).
At the Kagawa forum, which was attended by more than 200 people, Taichung was selected to host next year’s forum.
In a briefing about his city and its preparations to host next year’s World Flora Exposition, Lin said he hoped that the two events would help boost the number of Japanese visitors to Taiwan by 1 million next year.
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