The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has accelerated its efforts to upgrade the Tourism Bureau in hopes that a proposed organization act for the establishment of a Tourism Administration would be approved at the next legislative session, which begins next month.
The upgrading of the bureau is one of the three key tourism policies proposed by Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) since he took office last year, along with hosting a national tourism policy development conference and publishing the 2030 Tourism Policy White Paper, Tourism Bureau Director-General Chang Shi-chung (張錫聰) said.
To facilitate the establishment of a Tourism Administration, Chang said that Lin is leading a consultation task force to coordinate with all agencies under the ministry, with members of the task force drawn from almost all agencies.
The draft organization act for a Tourism Administration, which was finalized in May, is scheduled to be submitted to the Executive Yuan this month, he added.
“We hope the draft act can be approved at the upcoming legislative session,” Chang said.
The draft act, which has only 16 articles, is different from the organization act of the Tourism Bureau and includes the development of digital tourism services, he said.
It would authorize a Tourism Administration to form an independent administrative institution that would be in charge of organizing tourism marketing campaigns overseas, Chang said.
“Such an institution would allow the government to be directly involved in international tourism campaigns, enabling it to carry out the campaigns in a more flexible manner,” he said.
The proposed agency would continue the bureau’s task of taking charge of the 13 national scenic areas, but whether these sites would be consolidated and how their budget and personnel should be appropriated would be stipulated in the subsidiary regulations under the new organization act, Chang said.
In addition to the head office in Taipei, the new agency would have branch offices nationwide to oversee and integrate regional tourism affairs, he said.
The bureau is scheduled to submit the subsidiary regulations of its organization act to the Executive Yuan at the beginning of next year.
Because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the bureau is revising its goal of attracting 20 million tourists by 2030, Chang said.
The bureau has come up with three scenarios on how the situation would play out as it adjusts its goal, and would make a decision at the end of the year after taking into account how the world deals with the pandemic, he said.
Although Taiwan is actively seeking to form “travel bubbles” with other countries, it has made little progress as disease-prevention officials in target countries have differing views about the spread and containment of the pandemic, he said.
There has yet to be a successful “travel bubble” model for the bureau to follow, he said.
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
Taipei Zoo welcomes the Lunar New Year this year through its efforts to protect an endangered species of horse native to central Asia that was once fully extinct outside of captivity. The festival ushering in the Year of the Horse would draw attention to the zoo’s four specimens of Przewalski’s horse, named for a Russian geographer who first encountered them in the late 19th century across the steppes of western Mongolia. “Visitors will look at the horses and think that since this is the Year of the Horse: ‘I want to get to know horses,’” said zookeeper Chen Yun-chieh, who has been
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said the name of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania was agreed by both sides, after Lithuania’s prime minister described a 2021 decision to let Taiwan set up a de facto embassy in Vilnius as a “mistake.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, who entered office in September last year, told the Baltic News Service on Tuesday that Lithuania had begun taking “small first steps” aimed at restoring ties with Beijing. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan and Lithuania are important partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. Since the establishment of the
RSS