Visitor numbers to the Taipei International Travel Fair fell by more than 50 percent from last year due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, while domestic travel became the focus for attendees, the organizer said yesterday.
The four-day fair, which closes today at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, recorded 76,876 visitors during its first two days, 58 percent lower than last year, the Taiwan Visitors Association (台灣觀光協會) said.
Despite being the only such exposition held this year due to the pandemic, the fair is the smallest it has been in four years.
Photo: CNA
About 1,000 booths representing 20 countries participated in the event, association secretary-general Luo Chiung-ya (羅瓊雅) said.
Ryoko Yamamoto, representative of the Japanese pavilion, said it had only 29 booths, down from 100 last year.
“We only had one sales representative traveling from Japan this time, due to the cumbersome quarantine measures, so we had to hire 11 local interns to take care of the booths,” Yamamoto said, adding that the number of visitors to the pavilion was also half that of last year.
“There was a huge drop in visitor volume,” said Bob Yang (楊萬博), supervisor of the Palau Visitors Authority in Taiwan.
Visitors were aware that a plan to create a travel bubble between Taiwan and Palau has been postponed because of the Pacific ally’s decision not to relax quarantine rules for Taiwanese, Yang said, adding that visitors showed little interest in traveling to Palau.
However, domestic travel saw a boost, said James Lee (李慶良), a vice general manager at Richmond International Travel & Tours Co (山富國際旅行社).
The travel agency saw 85 percent of its sales going to overseas travel prior to the pandemic, but sales this year were targeted entirely at domestic travel, he said.
“Market response has been good for future holiday periods such as New Year’s Eve,” Lee said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said during the opening ceremony of the fair on Friday that the government’s promotion of domestic tourism since May would ultimately create NT$63.5 billion (US$2.2 billion) through trips made by 17.25 million people as the pandemic has limited overseas travel options to such a great extent.
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