Taiwan ranked 37th in this year’s global Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report released by the World Economic Forum yesterday, up six notches from 43rd in 2009.
While expressing pleasure at Taiwan’s progress in the global ranking, the Tourism Bureau said Taiwan would have secured an even higher spot if the forum had based its biennial report on statistics recorded last year instead of in 2009.
“Our tourist arrivals numbered just over 4.3 million in 2009, but in 2010 the figure was 5.5 million, therefore, we think our ranking would have been even better if the latest figures had been included,” Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said.
In this year’s report, the Swiss forum took into consideration tourism infrastructure and many other major indicators, including -environmental sustainability, policy rules and regulations, safety and security, as well as human, natural and cultural resources, to determine the rankings of 139 countries and areas around the world.
Taiwan scored well in certain categories, ranking first, for example, in terms of prevalence of telephone lines, one of the indicators in the area of information and communication technology infrastructure.
In the category of policy rules and regulations, Taiwan ranked No. 7 in terms of transparency of government policymaking and 19th in terms of property rights.
Under the heading of ground transport infrastructure, Taiwan ranked No. 8 in the category of railroad infrastructure quality, ninth in ground transport network quality and 16th in road quality.
Liu attributed Taiwan’s high rankings in ground transport infrastructure to a combination of factors, including its high-speed railway.
In addition, there are clean and -efficient mass rapid transit services in Taipei and Greater Kaohsiung and on the Taiwan Railway Administration’s round-the-nation railroad routes, he said.
However, Taiwan fared poorly in the category of environmental sustainability, ranking 120th in carbon dioxide emissions control and 114th in conservation of threatened species. Other weak areas included the presence of major car rental companies (133rd) and ease of hiring foreign labor (125th).
Taiwan’s exclusion from the UN also affected its global tourism competitiveness, Liu said.
Taiwan ranked 75th in terms of the number of UN-sanctioned World Heritage natural sites.
“As Taiwan is not a UN member, it cannot participate in major world tourism organizations and stands little chance of having its tourist spots rated as World Heritage sites,” Liu said.
Some of Taiwan’s ecological protection areas, such as those on the outlying island of Penghu and at Yehliu Geological Park in the north, have potential to become World Heritage sites.
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