China has adopted punitive measures against Taiwan in response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) and her administration’s refusal to accept the so-called “1992 consensus.”
It has limited the number of Chinese tourists allowed to visit Taiwan, and politicians, including pan-blue camp county commissioners and mayors — thinking this has weakened Taiwan’s economy and tourism sector — visited Beijing to beg the Chinese government to continue to allow Chinese tourists to visit their areas, in addition to mobilizing supporters and media outlets for anti-government protests.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assumed that the drop in Chinese tourists would result in a decline in the overall number of visitors to Taiwan, but on Sunday evening, the nation welcomed its 10 millionth tourist this year, nine days earlier than last year.
This shows that the decline in the number of Chinese tourists does not spell disaster for Taiwan, and turned the KMT’s handwringing into a joke.
Chinese tourist numbers have plummeted. Tourism Bureau data show that the number of Chinese visitors dropped by between 700,000 and 800,000 this year. While this means that the total number of Chinese tourists is unlikely to break the 4 million mark as it did last year, Taiwan has been successful in diversifying and developing new tourism sources.
The bureau estimates that the total number of visitors to Taiwan might surpass 10.5 million this year, 100,000 more than last year.
The number of Japanese and South Korean visitors has increased sharply — from January to October, the total number of Japanese tourists reached 1.52 million, an increase of 17.52 percent from last year, while 700,000 South Koreans have visited Taiwan, an increase of 32.55 percent from last year.
To develop its “new southbound policy,” the government has waived visa requirements for visitors from Thailand and Myanmar. This year, the Thai market has grown by about 50 percent from last year and 140,000 Thai visitors have arrived so far.
The number of Vietnamese tourists has also increased, by about 20 percent, and the number of visitors from the Philippines has increased by about 15 percent. Visitor numbers from Hong Kong and Macau were stable for years, but this year, the number of visitors from those two territories increased by 6.43 percent.
It turns out this has been a stellar year for our nation’s tourism sector.
China’s interference with cross-strait tourism for political reasons is regrettable, but Chinese firms have long relied on the “one-dragon service” — a unified management strategy by Chinese and Hong Kong companies that control where and how Chinese tourists spend their money in Taiwan — to attract cheap tours, and this has caused a decline in the quality and safety of services provided by Taiwanese businesses.
It has also had an effect on the lives of Taiwanese. Only a small number of local businesses have profited from the influx of Chinese tourists, while the public at large had to deal with the negative effects.
This is not a reasonable development. The decline in the number of Chinese tourists has been offset by tourists from other countries, which is a positive development. Not only would this help lower Taiwan’s dependence on a single market, it also stimulates the tourism industry to boost its marketing in those nations.
The drop in the number of Chinese tourists is a blessing in disguise, as it will help adjust Taiwan’s tourism industry and raised the quality of its services and offerings.
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