Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) on Wednesday said that the ministry would suspend domestic travel subsidies for trips to eastern Taiwan and the outlying islands, which have seen a surge in visitors.
SETN on July 7 reported that more than 5,000 people arrived on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) in the first week of this month alone, and other reports suggested that residents were becoming frustrated as tourists had emptied the shelves in the local convenience stores.
Separately, residents of Penghu County were overwhelmed when more than 20,000 visitors last week descended on Magong for an annual fireworks festival, and locals were stuck in traffic and unable to buy food in the city’s night market.
Although government subsidies might have contributed to this surge in visitors, domestic travel incentives were introduced long before the COVID-19 pandemic to counter a decline in Chinese tourists, and are not likely the main cause of this month’s deluge. Government statistics show that Taiwanese made more than 17 million trips abroad last year, and while a portion of those would have been for business, the majority were likely for tourism purposes.
Given that Taiwanese are unable to travel abroad this year due to the pandemic, the nation was likely to see a rise in domestic tourism with or without the subsidies — particularly as it has handled the pandemic better than most other nations.
Lin said that the ministry might begin promoting travel to cities on Taiwan’s west coast, to reduce the impact on the outlying islands. This might be effective in convincing those motivated by travel subsidies to change their plans, but others might simply try to get off the main island to ease the doldrums of being unable to travel abroad. For them, it would not matter whether they can get discounts on accommodation — they simply want to see somewhere new, or to experience traveling by plane or boat again.
A better approach would be for the government to restrict travel destinations, based on city or county of residence, on a rotating basis. For example, Taipei residents could be allowed to purchase boat and plane tickets to Penghu next month, while people in Yilan and Hualien counties could purchase tickets to Orchid Island and Green Island (綠島). Then in September, people in Taipei would be permitted to travel to Kinmen, while residents of Yilan and Hualien could travel to Penghu, and so on.
Managing the flow of travel in such a way would allow tourism operators on those islands to better handle the influx of visitors, and would ease the burden on locals. Exceptions could be made for those traveling for family or other reasons. The government could leave the restrictions in place until the end of the pandemic, when people would again be able to travel abroad.
The government should also move to ensure that the lives of residents on the outlying islands are not disrupted in the face of a surge in visitors throughout the pandemic. For example, a number of seats on ferries and planes should be reserved for residents. The government could also subsidize these seats to ensure that locals can always get to Taiwan proper. It could also communicate with locally operating stores to ensure an adequate supply of groceries and other merchandise, even when there is an influx of visitors. This is particularly important since the islands might receive shipments infrequently.
Subsidies, like the stimulus vouchers, are not a bad idea to spur domestic spending, but it would be prudent to control the flow of tourism to the outlying islands until the pandemic ends.
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