Lawmakers yesterday asked the Tourism Bureau to stop funding the construction of artificial tourism facilities and focus on helping local governments attract visitors with unique cultural attractions and specialties.
The nation has many similar artificial tourism facilities, which people often visit only once because of their lack of originality, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee to review the bureau’s budget for next year.
The nation has 80 villages decorated with colorful murals, 13 skywalks and four glass churches, Lin said.
Photo: Yang Chin-cheng, Taipei Times
These places might have drawn huge crowds initially, but public interest quickly fades, he said.
The committee unanimously passed a resolution proposed by Lin to freeze 20 percent of the budget allocated to develop, build and manage national scenic areas.
The budget might be unfrozen after the bureau submits a report on how it plans to address the attractions issue, the resolution says.
With temples across the nation hosting carnivals and pilgrimages year round, the bureau should design package tours featuring traditional religious events and promote them to international tourists, DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said.
The bureau’s subsidy for religious events could be used to integrate religious activities and local events, such as combining celebrations at Tainan’s Guandi Temple with the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, she said.
Tourism Bureau Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said that the agency would no longer build artificial tourist attractions like skywalks and would next year focus on promoting tours to “special towns.”
The bureau hopes that a “special town campaign” would draw more visitors to destinations in central and southern Taiwan, he said.
The bureau has rejected three applications to build scenic bridges, Technical Division Director Huang Shi-fang (黃勢芳) said, adding that it would no longer fund murals for villages and attractions.
The Directorate-General of Highways would be in charge of building bridges for transportation purposes, Huang said.
The bureau has allocated about NT$1.83 billion (US$59.3 million) to develop, build and manage national scenic areas in the next fiscal year, Huang said, adding that most of the budget would be used to build or maintain tourism facilities.
The funding would be used to market facilities that have already been built, he said.
As some newly elected mayors and county commissioners are looking to increase exchanges with China, the committee asked the bureau to ensure that problems, such as zero or low-cost tour groups, would not recur.
Travel agents offering such tours seek to make a profit by turning them into shopping tours, they said.
The bureau hopes to attract more independent Chinese travelers, while those traveling with groups would be encouraged to join customized and in-depth tours rather than low-cost tours, Chou said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the