New tourism campaigns are being created to target South Korean visitors, prompted by concerns that they are staying away after the Sewol ferry disaster last month, the Tourism Bureau said.
The bureau said it would send a delegation to South Korea to discuss better promotional campaigns with tour agencies.
South Koreans visitor numbers to Taiwan reached about 150,000 during the first quarter of this year, 91.42 percent growth from a year ago, bureau data showed.
However, the bureau said it is uncertain whether the surge will continue, as would-be travelers have reined in their spending since the sinking of the Sewol, which killed nearly 300 people, mostly students.
Cancelations have been made by South Korean tour groups including graduation trips, which are a major contributor to Taiwan’s travel market, the bureau said.
The bureau said it is planning new incentives, such as complimentary train tickets and other discounts.
Meanwhile, the bureau said that the number of tourists in the first quarter of this year was a record-high 1.65 million.
Overall visitor numbers of 2.3 million in the year’s first three months represented a 23.8 percent increase from a year ago, the bureau said.
Of these visitors, about 72 percent came for leisure, it said.
The bureau said the nation’s airports received a 15-year high of more than 12 million passengers in the first quarter, which was a 10.3 percent increase from last year.
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport also handled a record-high 8.04 million passengers during the first quarter, an 11 percent increase compared with the first quarter of last year.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
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