The number of international visitors is expected to fall below 1 million this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage around the world, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
Foreign travelers to Taiwan dropped from 11.84 million in 2019 to 1.377 million last year, bureau Director-General Chang Hsi-chung (張錫聰) told a media briefing in Taipei, adding that 1.3 million arrived during the first quarter, when the government had not yet banned foreign nationals from entering the country for tourism purposes.
With the travel ban still in the place, Chang said that the bureau was not optimistic about the projected number of foreign visitors this year.
“On average, about 20,000 travelers arrived every month since the pandemic. Should this trend continue, the number of international travelers is not likely to exceed 1 million this year, most of whom would be coming for non-tourism purposes,” he said, adding that the bureau’s estimates would be adjusted depending on the pandemic situation.
Minister of Transportation and Communication Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that the government’s policy for the travel industry has moved from offering relief funds to boosting its development.
As concern over the pandemic spreading domestically rises, fewer people are expected to apply for the government’s autumn and winter travel subsidies, he said, adding that ministry officials have been instructed to monitor the use of the subsidies and consider using them to facilitate growth in the travel industry instead.
Some domestic tourists have qualms about visiting tourist attractions in Taoyuan after the Central Epidemic Command Center on Sunday said that more than 5,000 people were expected to be placed in isolation to contain an outbreak of COVID-19 at Taoyuan General Hospital, which has so far led to 15 confirmed cases.
Several travel agencies reported receiving a rise in requests from customers to cancel tours.
“Taiwan remains a relatively safe place as long as we thoroughly enforce disease prevention measures. There is no need to panic,” Lin said.
“The recent changes in the situation might inconvenience some tour operators, and we hope that they understand,” he said.
Lin urged the public to stay calm and follow instructions given by the Central Epidemic Command Center.
“Supporting Taoyuan is supporting Taiwan. None of us is an outsider, and we should not put a special label on people from a certain region because of the pandemic,” he said.
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