The total number of Taiwanese tourists traveling abroad topped 11.42 million as of last month, while the numbers so far this year are up 7.9 percent increase over the same period last year, data from the Tourism Bureau showed yesterday.
Japan remains the favorite travel destination for Taiwanese, with total number of travelers rising by 7.64 percent to 3.4 million.
The number of Taiwanese heading to South Korea also grew by 23.9 percent to reach 736,347, the largest growth compared with visitors to other countries, while the number of those heading to Thailand rose by 22.95 percent to reach 455,627, the data showed.
The number of international visitors to Taiwan rose by 3.78 percent to 7.12 million, with trial visa-waiver programs for Southeast Asian tourists helping boost the numbers of visitors from the Philippines and Vietnam by 57.17 percent and 37.76 percent respectively, while the number of Thai visitors rose by 7.64 percent.
While former Tourism Bureau Deputy director-general Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) attributed to the increase in Vietnamese visitors to the growing number of flights between the two nations and the government’s visa-waiver program, he said whether the numbers will grow steadily and mature remains to be seen.
Some analysts have said the continued growth in the number of Taiwanese vacationing abroad is evidence that the government’s pension reform programs has not affected pensioners’ interests in joining overseas tours, but others said that there might be a change in the types of people traveling abroad.
“The nation’s international visitors continue to increase overall, even though there is a significant drop in Chinese visitors,” Liu said.
“The increase in the total numbers does not necessarily mean the number of travelers in the 50-and-above age group is also growing. If the increase came mostly from a rise in the number of young travelers, it would be difficult to gauge the impact of the pension reform on the travel market,” he said.
There has been a continual increase in young people traveling due to the increase in flights offered by low-cost carriers, he said.
As more working professionals prefer to travel to destinations closer to Taiwan, which have relatively lower travel costs, the Internet has made it easier for them to book flight tickets and reserve hotel rooms, Liu said.
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:
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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