The Taipei City Government will kick-off a trilingual tourist bus service next week, aiming to stimulate local tourism by showing off Taipei's hottest spots to foreign visitors.
The first of the three-route system offers buses to over a dozen major tourist destinations, including the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the National Palace Museum and the outdoor marketplace on Dihua Street. Buses run daily between 8am to 3pm, departing every 30 minutes.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The second "shop till you drop" route runs back and forth between a dozen major department stores and most major international hotels in downtown Taipei. The shopping buses run daily between 10am to 5pm, one every hour.
The third and final tour runs every evening, taking tourists for a traditional Mongolian Barbecue dinner before moving on to the Lungshan Temple, Snake Alley and the Taipei Observatory. These buses run out of the Taipei Main Station once daily at 6:30pm.
Unlike most Taiwanese tours, tourists don't have to rush from site to site, but instead can get on and off whenever and wherever they like.
"Taipei has lots of cool places to check out and the Taipei Bus Tour offers a comfortable and convenient solution to see the sites," said Luke Lee (
Lee added that tourist buses will also offer trilingual audio services including Chinese, English and Japanese and video services to introduce the city while buses are on the move.
Supervised by Taipei City Government's Bureau of Transportation and run by the tourism association, the first buses roll as of next Tuesday.
But the service doesn't come cheap. Tickets are priced at NT$400 each for the first and second tours respectively and NT$1,000 each for the dinner tour. Tickets are sold at major hotels, travel agencies or can be bought directly from bus drivers.
Foreign tourists expressed mixed reactions to the idea.
"It's a little bit pricey and I can also get around the city and see these spots by regular bus for NT$15 each ride," said Victor Silva, an engineer from the US working at the Korea-based Dongunk Development Co. This is Silva's third business trip to Taipei.
He added that the tourist bus service would be a better idea if ticket prices were a bit cheaper.
Another Taipei visitor called the service a good buy.
"I just arrived in Taiwan and have no idea about Taipei ... the service may be a good option and the price is acceptable," said Akos Vefek of Finland, an engineer at Nokia who was spotted scanning a Taipei City map at the Hsimeng MRT station yesterday.
He explained that since he is usually busy with business on his visits, there is little time to read tour books, so the tourist bus service would be helpful.
"The most important thing is for the bus to have air conditioning -- the weather is really hot here," Vefek added.
According to the tourism association's Lee, the group has invested some NT$25 million to remodel buses and to install 42-inch flat-screen TVs as well as a stereo headphone system.
"The price is quite reasonable because we offer a first-class environment," Lee stressed.
Meanwhile, one tourism veteran who requested anonymity said that the business would find it difficult to turn a profit.
"The market demand is limited. Most foreign tourists in Taipei are business travelers and don't have much leisure time."
In addition, the majority of foreign tourists that come on vacation -- Japanese and Hong Kong residents -- usually opt for group tours rather than traveling alone.
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