Tue, Mar 23, 2004 page10

• Political dispute the latest blow to tourism sector

  STAYING AWAY Travel agents say they expect tourists, especially those from Japan, to avoid the risk of coming to Taiwan during political instability

  • By Amber Chung / STAFF REPORTER
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  Political disputes are damaging the nation's tourism industry and may hurt the government's goal of attracting 3.2 million visitors this year, industry veterans said yesterday.

  "To my understanding, foreign visitors' willingness to visit Taiwan has been reduced by the nation's political turmoil, except for those who scheduled travel plans before the election," said Roget Hsu (許高慶), secretary-general of the Travel Agents Association of Taiwan (旅行公會全國聯合會).

  The government, he added, has suspended overseas promotions of its "Visit Taiwan Year" campaign.

  It may take two to three months for foreign travellers to regain their confidence in the nation's travel environment, Hsu said.

  To boost the nation's tourism sector, the Cabinet launched a six-year project in September 2002 with the aim of doubling the number of foreign tourists visiting Taiwan to 5 million by 2008.

  The project was frustrated by the outbreak of SARS last year, which caused the number of visitors to fall to just 2.2 million, 600,000 fewer than the government's target.

  In an effort to reinvigorate the industry, the government last November started the "Visit Taiwan Year" with the goal of attracting 3.2 million foreign visitors this year.

  South East Travel Services (東南旅行社), which handles more than half of the nation's Japanese tourists, said it had not received any cancellations on the first working day after election. But Walter Chen (陳威德), associate manager of South East, said he was worried that prolonged political disputes may damage their business.

  "Japanese travellers have always been the largest segment of Taiwan's inbound visitors for years," Chen said.

  Japanese tourists used to account for more than one-third of the nation's tourists each year. But the number of Japanese tourists fell by more than 50 percent in the wake of the SARS outbreak last year, and it still has not recovered to the pre-epidemic level.

  "We are worried that this segment will be further damaged by the political disorder as Japanese travellers always have high concerns about safety in their travel environment," Chen said.

  Vincent Lin (林承曄), a director at Lion Travel Service Co (雄獅旅行社), said the business of arranging holidays for outbound travellers was also slow.

  "Incoming phone calls for business were down by about 50 percent compared to normal," Lin said yesterday, adding that the industry faced an uncertain future in the next two months.

  Taiwan's tourism industry has experienced great turbulence over the past two years because of an economic downturn and the eruption of epidemics in Asia such as SARS and bird flu.

  To resuscitate the business, the industry strongly urged the government to lift bans on Chinese residents visiting Taiwan.

  "We hope the government can open up its policy to allow Chinese residents to visit Taiwan, which could bring tens of billions of dollars worth of business to Taiwan's tourism and service industries," Hsu said.

  More than 10 million Chinese went abroad last year and China could become the largest origin of travellers in 2009, he said.
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