The presidential candidates of the nation’s two major parties yesterday presented different visions for the tourism industry.
One called for an upgrade in service quality and raising the cap on Chinese tourists, and the other said a broader visitor base needed to be developed, attractions needed to be better integrated and management of Chinese tour groups improved.
Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate, met with travel industry representatives in Pingtung County to discuss tourism policies.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
The representatives made 10 suggestions, including allowing the hotel industry to employ migrant workers, allowing direct cross-strait flights at Hengchun Airport, not extending the lifespan of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County past 2025 and allowing up to 10,000 Chinese tourists on the Free Independent Travel (FIT) program to visit per day as well as 10,000 on organized tours.
Hung told the group that raising the cap on Chinese tourists would not be a problem, but there needed to be enough rooms for them to stay in, the safety of tour group buses had to be improved and service quality enhanced.
As for the Ma-anshan plant, a safe and stable supply of electricity is a prerequisite for tourism, she said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“There will be no tourists if you do not have enough electricity,” she said.
Hung said disease prevention is also a must for attracting tourists as people worry about dengue fever when they head to southern Taiwan at present.
“No one would want to come [if there is a outbreak of disease],” she added.
Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) attended the Tourism Industry Summit in Taipei, where she proposed three strategies for boosting the tourism industry.
Providing convenience for tourists, building appealing tourist attractions and undertaking goodwill management were crucial, she said.
Simplifying the complicated procedures required for traveling to Taiwan is the first step to greater convenience, she said, adding that there are now only 48 countries whose citizens quality for visa-on-arrival entry or do not need visas to visit Taiwan, so there was a need to broaden the tourist base, especially from ASEAN member states.
Developing an “iTaiwan Pass” that integrates various services, such as mass transit and banking, could not only make visitors’ journeys easier, but also increase their willingness to spend money in Taiwan, Tsai said.
Integrating tourist attractions in different cities could avoid creating concentrations of visitors in certain parts of the country, Tsai said.
She suggested establishing four major tourism taskforce regions that could each work on integrating and organizing the resources among cities and counties in the nation’s four regions.
As for goodwill management, the DPP would “definitely not reduce the total number of Chinese tourists permitted,” she said.
“Many think that the DPP does not welcome Chinese visitors, but that is not true,” Tsai said, adding that the lifting of the ban on Chinese tourists was made when the DPP was in power.
Good management means enhancing tourism quality, which could be achieved by increasing the number of Chinese tourists traveling via the FIT program and the number of tourist groups with high purchasing power, Tsai said.
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