Promising to turn Taiwan into one of Asia’s prime travel destinations in the next 10 years, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that tourism would become a growth driver for the nation’s economy, generating more than NT$1 trillion (US$33 billion) in output.
“We introduced the ‘Big Southern Project’ on Sunday, which is to be enforced to balance development in northern and southern Taiwan. Our goal is that the tourism industry becomes a locomotive that drives the economy forward,” she said at the opening of the “Tourism 2030: National Tourism Policy Development Conference.”
As of last week, Taiwan had received 11.11 million international visitors this year, which would be the fifth year that the number of foreign travelers has exceeded 10 million, Tsai said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The latest Global Muslim Travel Index ranked Taiwan No. 3 among its non-Muslim country travel destinations, she added.
“The most important thing is that all these statistics and rankings are real, not numbers that the government has inflated,” she said.
Tsai added that she was the nation’s first president to organize a campaign to invite Internet celebrities to come and spend one night at the Presidential Office, as a way to introduce Taiwan to the world.
One of them, Palestinian-Israeli Nuseir Yassin, posted videos on his Facebook page titled “Nas Daily,” which is followed by more than 14 million people around the world, Tsai said, adding that the nation would have more exposure in the international community through Internet celebrities like Yassin.
As the government would concentrate on promoting Taiwan’s mountains and other ecological resources to international tourists next year, Tsai said that it would also introduce Aboriginal cultures, which would add value to the nation’s tourism industry.
Asked why the nation has seen a large increase in hotel revenue, although Chinese tourist numbers have dropped by more than 1 million, Tsai said that while the ratio of Chinese visitors has dropped from 44 percent to 24 percent, the nation has still seen an increase in overall tourist numbers.
“We will continue to find new sources of international travelers and hope to elevate the nation’s travel quality and quantity by building on the current foundation,” she said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that a new record was set last week when the number of Japanese travelers exceeded 2 million for the first time.
In October, the number of international travelers who are not from China rose by 16 percent, also a new record.
Statistics from the Tourism Bureau showed that the nation’s foreign-exchange earnings from tourism hit a peak in 2014 at US$14.61 billion.
That was followed by a drop to US$14.38 billion in 2015, US$13.37 billion in 2016 and US$12.31 billion in 2017. However, the figure rebounded last year to US$13.7 billion.
International tourist numbers rose 3.05 percent last year to 11.06 million, with visitors spending 6.46 nights on average.
Their average daily expense rose 6.83 percent to US$191.7 last year, a large part of which was spent on accommodation, which was about 35 percent, it said.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
PETITIONS: A Democratic Progressive Party official quoted President William Lai as saying that civil society groups are organizing the recall drives at the grassroots level Some civil society groups yesterday announced that they have collected enough signatures to pass the first-stage threshold to initiate a recall vote against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators in 18 constituencies nationwide, saying that they would submit the signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) today. They also said that they expected to pass the threshold in eight more constituencies in the coming days, meaning the number of KMT legislators facing a recall vote could reach 26. The groups set up stations to collect signatures at local marketplaces and busy commercial districts. The legislators their petition drives target include Fu