A record high of almost 30 million people traveled to or from Taiwan last year, 19.5 percent more than in 2009, government statistics released over the weekend showed.
The latest statistics released by the Ministry of the Interior showed inbound passengers totaled 14,980,936 last year, a 19.72 percent increase from 2009, while outbound passengers totaled 14,909,299, an annual increase of 19.27 percent.
Both the arrival and departure figures were historical highs.
The combined 29,890,235 arrivals and departures were 19.5 percent more than a year earlier.
Ministry officials attributed the increase to an economic recovery and a jump in cross--Taiwan Strait travel following the relaxation of restrictions on Chinese tourists from the middle of 2008.
Since Taiwan conditionally opened its doors to some groups of tourists from China in 2002, the number of tourists from there visiting Taiwan has grown steadily.
In terms of travelers’ nationalities, Taiwanese accounted for 63 percent of the total outbound and inbound travel, while Chinese nationals (including Hong Kong and Macau residents) made up 15.4 percent. Individuals from other countries accounted for the remaining 21.5 percent.
Some 5.57 million foreign passengers entered Taiwan last year, with 43.6 percent of them coming from China (including Hong Kong and Macau), 19.4 percent from Japan, 7.1 percent from the US and 5.1 percent coming from Malaysia, ministry figures showed.
About 57 percent of the 9.42 million outbound trips made by Taiwanese began with travel to China, while 14.6 percent went to Japan on the first leg of their trips.
About 4.6 percent flew to the US and 4.3 percent traveled to South Korea.
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