More resources and personnel can be devoted to marketing Taiwan as an international tourist destination after the Tourism Administration is officially established on Sept. 15, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) yesterday told a tourism forum in Taipei.
The legislature has passed a bill to upgrade the Tourism Bureau to the Tourism Administration, Wang said.
The timing of the new agency’s establishment is “perfect,” as the nation’s borders have completely reopened, he said.
Photo: CNA
“As of Monday, 2.25 million international tourists had visited Taiwan so far this year, which is a big leap toward the goal of attracting 6 million international tourists the Tourism Bureau has set for the whole year,” Wang said.
“The bureau has limited resources and personnel, but more funding and personnel can be available once it is officially upgraded to the Tourism Administration, which can offer more services,” he said.
The new agency would be given a quota of 282 employees, up from 182 at the Tourism Bureau, bureau director-general Chang Shi-chung (張錫聰) told reporters on the sidelines of the forum.
The bureau is compiling next fiscal year’s budget plan, which is to be deliberated at the next legislative session, he said.
Between 2020 and last year, the bureau’s annual budgets ranged from NT$11.5 billion to NT$12 billion (US$374.3 million to US$391 million), including funding to maintain its operations and the Tourism Development Fund, he added.
“Money for the Tourism Development Fund comes from airport service fees, which reported a shortfall during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the bureau will soon be upgraded to the Tourism Administration, the Executive Yuan will coordinate between government agencies to adjust the funding for the new agency,” Chang said.
The new agency would also be given some decisionmaking power so that it can respond to tourism affairs more flexibly and swiftly, he said.
Once the agency is established, it would coordinate matters related to food, lodging, travel, shopping and travel, he added.
Before it proposes legislation governing the enforcement of international tourism campaigns, it would first increase employee quotas for its overseas branch offices and assign regions of responsibility to each of them, Chang said.
Regarding the resumption of cross-strait tourism, Wang told forum participants that it is a matter of equal treatment, and not a political issue.
“Although Beijing last month announced that it is welcoming tour groups from Taiwan, it has since 2019 banned individual tourists from visiting Taiwan and in 2020 banned travel agencies from organizing tours to Taiwan. The two sides will not be equal if we allow Taiwanese tourists to travel to China while Beijing keeps its people from coming to Taiwan. We want to make this position clear in our negotiations with Chinese tourism officials,” Wang said.
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