The Tourism Bureau has rolled out several initiatives to boost a post-COVID-19 recovery in the domestic travel sector, including themed itineraries, subsidies to travel agencies and a NT$5 million (US$164,647) subsidy program for seniors.
The bureau early this month brought back a program to offer charter-flight subsidies to travel agencies that bring international tourists to Hualien and Taitung counties.
Under the program, travel operators that charter flights carrying 50 or more tourists from other countries and land in Hualien or Taitung are entitled to subsidies, with flights from Japan eligible to receive a NT$385,000 subsidy, while those from South Korea can get NT$335,000, the bureau said.
Photo courtesy of Lion Travel via CNA
Charter flights from China, Hong Kong, Macau and other countries or areas can each receive subsidies of NT$285,000, it said.
Moreover, travel operators that charter flights with a load factor of more than 50 percent are eligible for additional subsidies, it said.
Meanwhile, to tap into the potential of the estimated NT$100 billion over-55s domestic travel market, the bureau in August last year launched its “Golden Years” program.
The program comprises eight itineraries catering to the demographic based on three major themes: the environment, culture, and lifestyles of health and sustainability, the bureau said.
The eight itineraries include whale and dolphin watching in Hualien County, a ride on the Breezy Blue excursion train between Taitung and Pingtung County’s Fangliao Township (枋寮) and a ride on the Alishan Forestry Railway’s heritage trains in Chiayi County.
In 2021, domestic travel by Taiwanese tourists aged 55 or older totaled NT$40 billion, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) said.
Foreign seniors were also an important source of tourists, accounting for 15 percent of inbound travelers, bringing an estimated NT$60 billion each year to Taiwan, Lin said.
The bureau also launched a NT$5 million government-run travel subsidy plan for domestic travelers aged 65 or older in July last year after a hiatus of more than two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the subsidy program, Taiwanese aged 65 or older taking part in travel agency-organized tour groups of more than six people are entitled to a daily subsidy of NT$500 per person, provided the trip includes at least one night at a hotel and at least half of the participants are 65 or older.
However, the total subsidy to cover transportation and accommodation is capped at NT$15,000 per tour group, the bureau said.
In related developments, to welcome foreign visitors following Taiwan lifting its COVID-19 pandemic border controls in October last year, the tea-themed CHO Stay Capsule Hotel at Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2 has reopened.
The hotel said that its award-winning design was inspired by the layout of tea plantations and aims to give guests a taste of Taiwan’s tea culture.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS