The Tourism Bureau said yesterday it would coordinate the establishment of smoking rooms at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after a Japanese tourism association complained that the nation’s strict airport smoking ban had kept Japanese tourists away.
During the third Taiwan-Japan Tourism Summit Forum in Nantou, the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) said that an amendment to the Tobacco Hazard Prevention and Control Act (菸害防治法) passed in January last year that limits smoking to certain areas at airports was “threatening” Japanese tourism.
Liu Hsi-lin (劉喜臨), chief secretary of the bureau, said Japanese tourists frequently complained that there were no smoking facilities at the airport, which prompted the airport to create two outdoor smoking terraces in January.
In addition to the smoking terraces, the airport is mulling whether to set up indoor smoking rooms with air-filtering equipment. Liu, however, said that this could not be accomplished until the legal issues were resolved.
The airport had previously unveiled a plan to set up nine indoor smoking rooms, but it was aborted after anti-smoking groups said it violated the act.
Given the high number of smokers in Japan, many have decided not to visit because of the strict anti-smoking laws, Liu said, citing the report by JATA, a national organization of travel agents and related industries.
Liu said that as Japan is one of the main sources of visitors, the bureau as a government agency in charge of local tourism promotion had a responsibility to coordinate and help resolve the problem.
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