Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said that the winter travel subsidy program brought hoteliers more than NT$10 billion (US$324.33 million) in revenue growth.
The program, which ran from November last year to the end of last month, consisted of two stages, with subsidies in the first stage going to tourists to Kaohsiung, as well as Yilan, Hualien, Taitung and Pingtung counties, and extending to all 22 cities and counties in the second stage.
For independent travelers, people aged under 60 were given NT$1,000 and those older than 60 were awarded NT$1,500 for accommodation during the first stage, while groups that stayed at hotels were offered NT$1,000 subsidies for high-speed rail tickets.
Second-stage subsidies did not include high-speed rail discounts, but extended the NT$1,500 subsidies to applicants aged 30 or younger.
For tourist groups, subsidies were capped at NT$30,000 per group, with the second stage also including subsidies of up to NT$50,000 per group for trips to the nation’s outlying islands.
The first stage contributed revenue growth of NT$4.8 billion for hotel proprietors, while the second stage yielded growth of NT$6.7 billion, Ministry of Transportation and Communications statistics showed.
The program cost about NT$1.4 billion in total, statistics showed.
The increase in revenue represented a growth of 20 to 30 percent, Su said, as he thanked ministry and local government employees for their efforts in promoting the policy.
The experience should serve as a reference when promoting similar policies, so that problems could be avoided — for example, there were initial delays in the disbursement of subsidies and some hoteliers exploited the subsidies to increase their accommodation fees, the premier said.
In other news, the Cabinet’s Asian Silicon Valley project has helped the Internet of Things sector record revenue growth of 19 percent for the second year last year, bringing its total output value to NT$1.1 trillion, Su said.
Regarding efforts to assist entrepreneurs to launch innovative start-ups, another objective of the project, Su said that responsible agencies should review regulations on government procurement, working conditions, business registration, and mergers and acquisitions to make them more flexible, as well as give Taiwan the momentum needed to maintain its status as a “super innovator” — a title given to the nation by the World Economic Forum in its annual report last year.
Last year, Taiwan’s innovative companies raised a record NT$21.8 billion in angel funds, compared with NT$16.2 billion in 2017, said the National Development Council, which oversees the project.
More than 100 innovative companies have moved into the Taipei Arena and Startup Terrace in Taoyuan’s Linkou District (林口), the council said.
Since 2017, international tech giants, such as Google, Microsoft, McKinsey & Co and Cisco, have set up innovation or research and development centers in the nation, which could benefit the development of the Internet of Things sector, it said.
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