Taiwan welcomed a record 1.101 million foreign visitors in April, up 24.72 percent from a year earlier, Tourism Bureau statistics showed, the first time the number has exceed 1 million.
Visitor arrivals from several markets — including Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia — reached records for the month, the data showed.
Taiwan welcomed 49,894 visitors from the Philippines, the most recorded in a single month.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Tourism Bureau
Compared with a year earlier, visitors from China increased by 79,605, more than any other market, followed by Hong Kong and Macau (60,770 collectively), Japan (39,226), South Korea (13,659), Thailand (8,162) and the Philippines (5,043), the statistics showed.
Arrivals from Russia grew by the largest percentage — 74 — year-on-year, followed by Oceania (58.74 percent), which the bureau defines as Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, Tahiti and the Federated States of Micronesia.
Compared with April last year, arrivals from Macau and Hong Kong, which had remained relatively stagnant in the first quarter of this year, grew by 49.57 percent collectively to 183,353, the highest rate of any market in Asia.
Tourism in April benefited from noticeably weaker efforts by Beijing to limit travel to Taiwan, as well as Japan’s Golden Week — a 10-day national holiday that began on April 27, Huang Cheng-tsung (黃正聰), an associate professor at Providence University’s Department of Tourism in Taichung, said yesterday.
Huang attributed the growth in visitor arrivals from Hong Kong and the Philippines to the late Easter holiday this year.
Visitor arrivals from the two markets, which observe the Christian holiday, fell in March, but grew in April, he said.
From January to April, Taiwan recorded 4,004,804 foreign visitors, a 10.64 percent increase from the same period last year, he said, adding that factors such as the US-China trade dispute, the depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar and the appreciation of the Japanese yen all contributed to the trend.
Visitor numbers could top 12 million this year, he said.
Last year, more than 11 million foreigners visited Taiwan, making it the fourth consecutive year that Taiwan has drawn more than 10 million foreign visitors.
Unusually, outbound travel between January and April grew at a slower rate than inbound travel, increasing 2.75 percent compared with the same period last year, the data showed.
In April, 1,415,406 Taiwanese went abroad, a 5.91 percent decline compared with a year earlier.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
RSS