Trips to the Kenting Peninsula in Pingtung County have dredged up a lot of public debate and furor, with many complaints about how expensive and unreasonable lodging is. Some people even call it a tourist “butchering ground.”
Many local business owners stake claims to beach areas by setting up parasols and driving away people who do not rent them. The managing authority for the area — Kenting National Park — has long ignored the issue.
Ultimately, this has affected the willingness of domestic travelers to go there, causing tourist numbers to plummet.
In 2008, Taiwan opened the door to Chinese tourists and in 2011 they were permitted to travel freely without being part of a tour group until Beijing placed restrictions on individual tourists to Taiwan in 2019. Those years marked a new chapter in Kenting’s tourism history. The small peninsula and its national park was already near capacity in summers even before hordes of Chinese tourists swarmed to the region, visiting every sight worth seeing and placing a heavy burden on the natural environment.
The quality of tourism decreased and fewer large-scale live music events would return.
Travel in Kenting, previously popular among wide swathes of locals and foreigners alike, is facing an uphill battle.
The lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing’s ban on Chinese tourists to Taiwan, an exploding market for low-cost air carriers and the rapid expansion of flight routes have meant that Kenting has lost much of its appeal. Many chain restaurants, hotels and resorts have shuttered due to the dwindling number of tourists — proof enough for someone like me, a born-and-bred Pingtung County native, to not jot down Kenting on my list of possible destinations for a family vacation.
I would rather take my family to Okinawa. Compared with the raucousness, grime, chaos and sky-high prices in Kenting, Japan’s southernmost prefecture is pristine and beautiful with kind and considerate people.
As travel expert Wu Feng (吳鳳) has said, compared with the famed beaches arranged like a string of pearls across Southeast Asia, Kenting, with little uniqueness to offer, is finding it difficult to attract overseas tourists.
Its main street is an example of everything that is wrong with the place. The food carts and stalls all look the same, with little variety or local flair. They operate illegally, blocking sidewalks, and once people are finished with their food, they often just toss the trash on the ground and walk off. The stalls braise, boil, char and dunk food, then wash what few reusable dishes they have on the street, turning the thoroughfare into a messy, trashy disaster. Moreover, the sky-high prices turn potential customers off.
With little competition and exorbitant prices for seafood, it is little wonder that tourists do not want to venture back to Kenting, while the food stand owners are only in it for the seasonal cash and do not seem bothered about sustainable development.
Local bed-and-breakfast operators and district development councils should be put in charge. Those responsible for development of the area should also be playing up the uniqueness of the natural resources, which would spread some of the tourism spending elsewhere in the county.
This would create more meaningful trips and itineraries that incorporate air, land and sea, highlighting some of the famed flora and fauna of Kenting National Park’s Forest Recreation Area, such as its looking-glass mangroves, Stalagmite Cave (石筍寶穴) and coral formations, not to mention the mighty and magnificent hanging banyans.
The ocean observation tower in the park is also a fantastic vantage point. People can gaze far out in peace at the South China Sea from the sixth and seventh floors, stroll through the park, which is replete with tropical flora paired with ecology and topography only found in the area, and visit Longkiau Old District (古瑯嶠地區) in Hengchun Township (恆春), an area popularized by the Seqalu: Formosa 1867 (斯卡羅) television series. Its peaks and ridges add to the area’s atmosphere.
With nearby island countries offering high-quality international tourism, Kenting needs to step up its efforts. Is soul and character-starved Kenting ready to turn a new leaf?
Wang Hsiang-cheng is a civil servant.
Translated by Tim Smith
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